Exam (Stuart Hazeldine, 2009): UK

Reviewed by Jonas Pedersen Hardebrant. Viewed at Metro 4, at Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

With Exam, director Stuart Hazeldine gives nothing away to the coincidence. In the opening sequence we follow how eight men and women are getting ready to do the final test in the hope of getting the dream job of their lives. We don’t see their faces but we know that they are young, ambitious and proper just by looking at the way they are getting ready, and when we finally see their faces as they enter the room of hope and fear, we know that we were right. While seated a man enters the room and gives them the instructions and 79 minutes to answer one “simple” question. With only a blank sheet of paper, the room itself and a guard who will escort them out if failing, the game can begin and as the instructor says as his last words in the information “The only rules in this room, are our rules”.

As further as the movie continues the more we get to know the appliances, who now are referred to as either their skin or hair color, and why they want this job so desperately. When “White” is taking a leading position there are arguments with both “Black” and “Brown” about what to do and how. As the big timer in front of them rapidly is counting down, frustration about what to do emerge, and the question is how far they will go to get the dream job of their lives?

Exam is a perfect example of how we as humans psychologically can totally change from being civilized till becoming selfish, suspicious and cynical, by such little means. As Hazeldine himself explained in the Q&A after the screening he tried, and succeeded, to give the room its own life and become the ninth actor in the competition. Hazeldine also revealed that he didn’t want to have actors that were famous, as he putted it “If you have Jude Law in the movie, then you know that he will be one of those who will last the longest, and to get rid of this I wanted relatively unknown actors”.  Surely Hazeldine succeeded in both the way he casted actors whom all of them are doing an really good job, and also how the story takes twists and turns during the entire movie which makes the audience aware able and observant.

What makes Exam such an exceptional movie is how Hazeldine have been able to intertwine all the characters together with the plot in such an efficient way that you feel intrigued in almost every scene. You never know what will happen next and you are not certain neither of the characters, nor the final. These facts makes the movie a joy to watch as you can just let it be served right in front of you without clichés or obvious turnarounds.
I would say that Exam is a mixture between “12 angry men”(Sidney Lumet) and “Lord of the flies” (Harry Hook) with a little hint of the Japanese movie “Batoru rowaiaru” (Battle Royal) (Kinji Fukasaku) which in my opinion are all very good movies.