Soumendra Padhi’s film investigates the educational system that uses underdogs as the poster child but tilts towards favouring those who are already favoured
Soumendra Padhi’s Farrey is a compelling take on realism tempered by reality. Niyati Singh (Alizeh Agnihotri) is a young girl who has spent all her life at an orphanage. She shares a room with the other girls, and her fate. On turning 18, they will be relocated to a care home where marriage awaits as an inevitability. The sterile social situation, however, is at odds with the promise of a buoyant future. Niyati is a gifted student, and her flying marks ensure admission in one of the best schools in Delhi with the promise of full scholarship at Oxford University.
Notwithstanding how things go from here, there is a comforting linearity to such a premise. The problem and the solution are clearly etched out. Niyati was born in an economically deprived household which qualifies as the stumbling block. Her academic brilliance is the means to overcome that. Why would it not be? Education has forever been depicted in fiction and treated in life as a conduit that can lead to better living. It is assumed to be the great leveller that can reset the unfairness of birth.
The girl with dreams too big for her eyes
Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s 12th Fail plays on this hypothesis and confirms it. The 2023 film is adapted from Anurag Pathak’s eponymous book and tracks the life of Manoj Kumar Sharma, an IPS officer who overcame insurmountable odds to reach his goal. Kumar was born in Chambal and when young, cheated in his class 12 exams. But a timely intervention from a police officer altered the course of his life as he embarked on a path of honesty and ultimately became an IPS officer.
The easy charm of 12th Fail is hard to resist. It unfolds as a classic coming-of-age story which culminates with the triumph of the underdog. During the journey of the protagonist, the film underlines the social mobility accorded by education. Chopra’s recent outing validates the assumed virtuosity of the written word and stresses on its incorruptibility. A large part of the reason why 12th Fail succeeded is because it restated the eternal secret of success: hard work and pedagogy.
With Farrey, Padhi is telling a different story. But he is also telling the same story in a different way. Niyati’s struggle is imbued with familiarity. The orphanage she stays in is running short of funds. Her dreams seem too big for her eyes. On paper, her admission at a high-end school could have served as the climactic finale. In this case, it is only a start. Her problems multiply. Niyati’s peers come from affluent backgrounds. They own smartphones and houses which she has hardly seen but immediately desires. She does not fit in but desperately wants to.
An absorbing fare
Padhi, who previously helmed the Netflix series, Jamtara - Sabka Number Ayega (2020), where a group of have-nots orchestrate a successful phishing scam, crafts a similar segue. The tables in her class quickly turn when Niyati’s batchmates start depending on her to score well in exams. She figures out a way for the rest to cheat and they offer her two things in return: a sense of belonging and money.
A still from the film featuring Alizeh Agnihotri (R) and Ronit Roy
Despite her humble origin, Niyati is not a sorry figure. She is unsure but aided by the hubris of youth. The writers (Abhishek Yadav, Jeetendra Nath Jeetu and Padhi are credited) take ingenious detours. What starts to resemble an eat-the-rich template bypasses monotony and arrives at surprising moments. For instance, Niyati genuinely wants to be befriended by her peers, especially Chhavi (Prasanna Bisht), the poor-rich girl who wants to go to Stanford University to fulfill her father’s wishes. And for the longest time, it remains unclear if Chhavi is exploiting Niyati or confiding in her.
But what makes Farrey so absorbing is its refusal to settle for easy resolutions even when the story is primed for it. For instance, by the third act it becomes evident that Niyati and Aakash (Sahil Mehta), another student from an impoverished background who got admission in the school on merit, are pawns for the rich kids. Their interpersonal relationship becomes increasingly transactional when Niyati and Aakash agree to help them in return for a lot of money.
The reality check
The underdog story reaches a full arc here and Padhi invites us to make a conventional reading. Niyati and Aakash are the de facto protagonists in this tale. They are good in studies and a fully funded scholarship awaits them. On the contrary, their affluent peers are undeserving and heartless. Broadly put, they are the antagonists. The impending vindication can only be clinched with the triumph of one side and the failure of another.
But Farrey uses realism both as a narrative language and a storytelling pursuit. The film ends with the rich facing no consequence and the poor getting mired in repercussions. The conclusion feels more like a reality check than a cautionary tale.
Farrey unspools without assuming the agency of education. Instead, it investigates the educational system in place that uses underdogs as the poster child but tilts towards favouring those who are already favoured. Niyati takes that flight to Oxford but what appears as redemption is revamped as a last-ditch recourse. She does not earn her future as much as she pays for it. Aakash, on the other hand, tapers off as a shadow of his past — a ghost of a student who foolishly believed that the unfairness of birth can be reset by the will of the present.
