Exam

Year: 2009

Actors: Gemma Chan, Pollyanna McIntosh, Chukwudi Iwuji, Colin Salmon

Duration: 101 min

Having passed all the previous hiring steps, the final eight candidates for a lucrative corporate job are brought together in a starkly lit room set up classroom styled. Beyond ambition, they are a diverse group, culturally, ethnically, academically, professionally, by gender and each with a different skill set. They have 80 minutes to complete the final exam; the results will determine who gets the job. The exam invigilator provides them with a very specific but short set of instructions; violation of any of those instructions which means automatic expulsion from the examination and the room. At the beginning of the eighty minutes, the invigilator exits the room for the duration, leaving the eight candidates alone only with a guard on duty, to who they are not to speak (one of the instructions). Alone, they find that the examination is not what they expect, as it begins more as a puzzle to be deciphered which may or may not lead to the question and thus the answer they are to provide. They find that they have to pay attention not only to the invigilator's instructions, but also to what he did not say. As the eighty minutes counts down, each shows to what extent they will go to be the last person standing, all with not a clear understanding of what the end goal of the job is.—Huggo

Genre: Action   Crime   Horror   Mystery   Thriller