Anant Mahadevan’s deadly earnest exploration of the commercialisation of education is about as exciting as a homework assignment. Tannishta Chatterjee plays Santoshi, a grim-faced physics teacher who likes to use games and demonstrations to make her lessons more interesting. Santoshi gets disillusioned after her tax commissioner husband is caught hiding bribe money in their home. The fact that the wads of cash were hidden behind her precious books drives Santoshi back into the arms of her spiritual guru (Suhasini Mulay), who tells her that failure is as important to face as success.

Santoshi resumes her teaching responsibilities at a college that values marks over comprehension. She goes about converting her classroom of rejects into IIT-JEE aspirants. Santoshi rails against coaching classes, but it’s ultimately the extra tutorials that help her wards shine. The message is muddled and the pace glacial even at 90 minutes. Most of the acting is strictly functional, with Chatterjee making an unlikely inspirational teacher of the wonders of physics, and the production values are better suited for television than the big screen.