Cinema
Sister Midnight
Karan Kandhari (director)
(studio)
15 (certificate)
107 (length)
14 March 2025 (released)
14 March 2025
Films like Sister Midnight do come along now and then which aren’t made to confuse yet they do. In most cases its best to leave critical faculties at the door and just let the film role over and not try to over think it.
Here as far as plot is concerned Uma (Radhika Apte) has arrived in Mumbai from a rural area after an arranged marriage to Gopal (Ashok Pathak), who has been there for a while to set up the household and himself. Acquainted since they were children, now married as adults, presents a number of problems.
Communication being an issue with Gopal and Uma having little rapport though you guess that there must have been something there at some point. He has a job that sees him staying out and getting drunk, while Uma is at home bored with few of the expected marital skills i.e. cooking. Her neighbour the world wise Sheetal (Chhaya Kadam) tries to impart her experience of marriage and men and is one of the film’s delights.
It's not surprising that Uma’s mind begins to wander with her vivid imagination that includes goats and birds. Then there’s her friendship with the local transvestites, she then takes a bus journey to the end of the line and the sea. From there things get weirder plunging into the darkness of her mind and horrors around her.
Written and directed by Karan Kandhari, having been developed over twenty years Sister Midnight could juggle several themes. There’s the loneliness of Uma and her unfulfilling marriage, the possible trauma of the arranged marriage itself and towards the end when the film moves into the supernatural and possibly a comment on the male hierarchy in India. But then it may not as Kandhari leaves a lot of space in the film for interpretation.
It's hard to pin anything such are the multitude of ideas, film formats and effects that Kandhari employs. The scenes are generally quite short so there’s a kinetic energy to it yet it still feels a touch long at times and frustrating. Nevertheless this is a film well worth exploring, over several viewings.
Sister Midnight is out now in UK cinemas.
Here as far as plot is concerned Uma (Radhika Apte) has arrived in Mumbai from a rural area after an arranged marriage to Gopal (Ashok Pathak), who has been there for a while to set up the household and himself. Acquainted since they were children, now married as adults, presents a number of problems.
Communication being an issue with Gopal and Uma having little rapport though you guess that there must have been something there at some point. He has a job that sees him staying out and getting drunk, while Uma is at home bored with few of the expected marital skills i.e. cooking. Her neighbour the world wise Sheetal (Chhaya Kadam) tries to impart her experience of marriage and men and is one of the film’s delights.
It's not surprising that Uma’s mind begins to wander with her vivid imagination that includes goats and birds. Then there’s her friendship with the local transvestites, she then takes a bus journey to the end of the line and the sea. From there things get weirder plunging into the darkness of her mind and horrors around her.
Written and directed by Karan Kandhari, having been developed over twenty years Sister Midnight could juggle several themes. There’s the loneliness of Uma and her unfulfilling marriage, the possible trauma of the arranged marriage itself and towards the end when the film moves into the supernatural and possibly a comment on the male hierarchy in India. But then it may not as Kandhari leaves a lot of space in the film for interpretation.
It's hard to pin anything such are the multitude of ideas, film formats and effects that Kandhari employs. The scenes are generally quite short so there’s a kinetic energy to it yet it still feels a touch long at times and frustrating. Nevertheless this is a film well worth exploring, over several viewings.
Sister Midnight is out now in UK cinemas.
