Debutant Alijeh was the bright spot in the middle practice
A bunch of ultra-rich students hang around with grades beyond their means that drag a poor little topper-girl into a cheating racket that spirals out of control. FayreA teen drama that oscillates between whippy and wobbly.
Co-produced by Salman Khan Films and directed by Soumendra Padhi (Budhiya Singh: Born to Run), the frenetic but often frivolous Faerie struggles to stave off monotony despite the contagious infectiousness that brings a cast of energetic young actors to the game.
The film skims the surface of the issues it tackles – inequality in higher secondary education, the unfairness at the heart of tutorial practices, the hypocrisy of school administrators and the yawning gap between the affluent and the marginalized.
Fayre (which means cheats, the kind used by test takers to help them outwit each other) However, cheating in exams is not. It mixes elements of a thriller with a campus drama show with a bit of flair. Shoestring romance or teenage jaunts – staples of the teenage genre – are best left out of its narrative.
Spotlight on boys and girls across the class divide trying their hardest to tackle the challenges the exam poses. They have multiple choices for each question, but those who want a high score have only one option in front of them – to find the answers they missed.
part of Fayre As flimsy as cheats are. Its purpose is correct. It alludes to the pitfalls of pushing one’s luck too far, but it is riddled with holes that can shadow the great canyon.
farre offers no great insight into the clash between need and greed, potential and dishonesty and rich and poor as it follows a group of youngsters who think nothing of mocking the examination system.
The makers claim the film is inspired by “true events” but ambiguously mention in the opening credits that its screenplay is adapted from the 2017 Thai film Bad Genius. It can either be a story drawn from real events or a story adapted from another film (which, in turn, may be based on fact).
Not at any stage Fayre A completely realistic sense of accessible melodramatic flourishes diverts attention away from the tribulations of students to crack them through the frivolity of school exams and illegal means. The racket starts around a school in Delhi and then assumes the scale of a highly-international fraud.
Niyati Singh (Alizeh), an academically brilliant girl, raised in an orphanage, wins a scholarship to attend an elite school. The girl’s shelter warden (Ranit Roy) showers her with fatherly love. His wife (Juhi Babbar Soni) also treats Niyati as her own daughter.
Niti’s success doesn’t thrill the couple but makes them think about how to finance her higher education when an Oxford scholarship is so far away. The girl overheard the conversation between the warden and his wife. This makes him aware of the problems ahead.
On a whim, he helps a wealthy classmate Chhavi (Prasanna Bishta) cheat. The latter secures the top no. Others in her class, including Pratik (Zane Shaw), turn to her for redemption. Destiny sees their desperation to score 80 percent marks as an opportunity to earn some money.
From here, it’s a downward spiral for Niyati and her boyfriend Akash (Sahil Mehta), a classmate who works as a delivery boy to supplement the family’s income. His mother, a widow, irons clothes for a living. Akash is less than enthusiastic when he announces that he has been offered a chance to go to Oxford.
Social and moral constraints are pat and predictable. Rich kids are spoiled brats who believe that money can buy anything. Their less privileged classmates – Niyati and Akash – are exceptionally brilliant students who will do anything not to disappoint their parents.
Questions of morality are sidelined as the two worlds merge and the latter is driven by circumstances into a gray area where the lines between right and wrong are blurred. The transgressions that destiny easily becomes a part of strain credibility. He does not seem to face any major dilemma of being caught in the web of deception.
The screenplay by Padhi and Abhishek Yadav (Kota Factory) is interspersed with stray scenes that show how difficult life is for Neeti and Akash and the constant pressure Chhavi is under from her father (Arbaaz Khan in a cameo). He was admitted to Stanford University like his older brother.
Apart from a certain amount of fate, there is no character in it Fayre They are given the necessary space to develop into real images. Rich Chhavi and Pratik Alisha live at home and commute to school in a rickety car – a stark contrast to Destiny and Akash’s residence and lifestyle – and their worldviews are severely clouded. But that’s all Fayre able to spell. The canvas it creates is rather shallow, if not entirely hollow.
The two most important characters in Nitti’s life – her supportive foster parents – also have to work with sketchy narration. It would have helped if the screenplay had revealed their backstories more clearly. A dashed line here and another tangential line are not enough to tell us where and how the good began their lives.
Except for a speech early in the film to prove how talented Niti is compared to the rest of the class, Fayre Showing students only in exam mode, Destiny creates accurate quick solutions for every exam.
Alijeh is by far the brightest spot Fayre. His role is meaty and he does full justice to it. The other three young actors in the cast – Sahil Mehta, Prasanna Bisht and Zain Shaw – have significantly less rounded characters to play but give the film sustained energy.
An impressive big screen debut and occasional flashes of thematic relevance, Fayre A middle ground, rough-around-the-edges exercise that only falls short of the top mark.
