Sister Midnight Review

I was fortunate enough to catch the New England premier of Sister Midnight at the Boston Underground Film Festival back in March, where I listed it as one of the best features of the festival. A huge benefit of catching an early screening is knowing nothing about the film beyond the title until the lights go down. I’d seen no reviews, no marketing, and not even read the BUFF-provided synopsis. That’s my preference, as it prevents my experience from being colored by expectation. However, when a film reveals itself very slowly and changes shape a handful of times, it’s easy to focus on details that will ultimately be inconsequential, and distract from its totality. While a rewatch rarely completely changes my mind, it helps refine my take. As such, I’m delighted the nearby multiplex regularly shows Hindi-language films.

This isn’t the life Uma (Radhika Apte) imagined. Although we never learn anything of her existence before being married off to Gopal (Ashok Pathak), a boy her own age whom she knew as a child, it’s clear “homemaker” was not a role she dreamed of fulfilling. She has no idea how to cook, struggles to keep herself entertained while he’s working all day (and drinking all evening), and refuses to exchange pleasantries with most neighboring housewives. She has an incredibly caustic wit, and is a champion of both biting sarcasm and creative cursing, skills she deploys frequently no matter the company. Gopal takes the brunt of it due to being pathetic and dopey; eventually, “Motherfucker” begins to feel like her pet name for him. She eventually gets a night job cleaning the temp agency building, where she befriends kindly old elevator operator Sher Singh (Subhash Chandra).

For a while, it proceeds as a stylish and constantly laugh out loud domestic comedy. The boundless energy and impeccable timing Apte brings to the role, paired with Pathak’s portrayal of a sad sack who remains sympathetic (while absolutely deserving of Uma’s derision), would make for an enjoyable enough story on its own. But this is a genre film; that title isn’t for nothing, nor are the Moon shots. As she pushes back against tradition, she eventually goes a step too far, tempting the fates into delivering an illness that begins to transform her. Notably, writer/director Karan Kandhari isn’t chastising his protagonist for her individuality. Rather, spitting in the face of society’s expectations will bring consequences from those who lack the boldness to revolt. So her discovery of this new side is not all sunshine and roses, even as it ultimately improves her life.

That said, it does bring her into contact with a variety of others proudly doing their own thing. Importantly, just like her, none of them are explicitly raging against the system. They’re simply living their best lives, and don’t really care what people think of them. Sher is content to ride between floors all evening, Aditia (Navya Sawant) and her crew of glamorous genderqueer sex workers hang out in the shade all day, and her neighbor Sheetal (Chhaya Kadam) is quick to help someone in need. That none of them conform to the neat, orderly domesticity that’s expected of them gives Uma strength in her darkest moments, of which there are many. Each one serves as a reminder that some people’s mere existence is viewed as an affront to the system, and that true strength lies in the community you construct around you.

Additionally, it’s a condemnation of the expectation of traditional domesticity in the modern era. The central relationship is clearly ill-advised, as they bring out the worst in each other. In fact, their happiest moments come after Uma declares “We’re basically just friends now, right?” With all the pressure of martial duties removed, they can finally relax and have some fun; Gopal even accepts Uma’s sexual advances and they (finally!) sleep together for the first time. Ironically, despite how distant they’ve been from each other until now, their neighbors have been all up in their business. It’s the nature of city living, where people live practically on top of each other. On the one hand, sharing a wall with Sheetal allows them to quickly become friends and help each other out. But it also means Reshma (Smita Tambe) notices her strange comings and goings, triggering initial accusations of marital infidelity, which eventually escalate into claims of her being a witch.

All of this is presented in a visual language that is incredibly energetic and fun, while also feeling intimate and slightly voyeuristic. Heavily drawing from techniques most commonly employed by Wes Anderson, cinematographer Sverre Sørdal makes extensive use of long dolly shots, a handful of crash zooms, and lots of characters either squared off to camera or exactly perpendicular to it. Some shots are direct riffs on Anderson’s films, such as dollying along with Gopal as he arrives home to show us inside the neighboring homes. Others merely would feel at home in an Anderson dollhouse, such as signifying the passage of time using shadows that shift with an unnatural speed and smoothness. Crucially, Sørdal’s camera never feels constrained to this approach, and freely moves about more naturally when it suits the shot. In either mode, he perfectly captures the world and Apte’s brilliant performance.

That’s a point I cannot overemphasize: Radhika Apte’s performance is out of this world. Her command of her movements is remarkable, often seeing her shift from completely still to more active in an instant for a comedic beat she nails every time. She imbues the character with so much lived-in humanity that we feel like we know her past despite not spending a single second on it. So when the script calls on her for proper dramatic beats, it’s a natural extension of who she is. As a result, I cannot imagine a viewer who remains distanced from Uma’s story. Apte has been a prolific and much lauded actor in Indian TV and cinema for well over a decade, which has resulted in a handful of award nominations (mostly at festivals), but few wins: I’m hopeful this year will change that.

All of that said, the script could have used some work. While the dialog is fantastic, we spend too much time on little deviations from the story that seem only to serve a comedic purpose. While entertaining, they stretch out the primary action, especially in the early part of the film. And once we reach the third act, the film loses its form, meandering for quite a while before an anticlimactic final confrontation. After my initial viewing, I struggled to recall this section of the film. While a rewatch confirms it stems from the plot, it feels so divorced from it. It’s a shame, because while it’s not hard to see what Kandhari was going for, it diminishes the emotional impact of the story.

No Indian film industry has managed to gain a foothold in the United States, even after the success of the Telugu-language RRR a few years ago. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, as even Parasite‘s Best Picture win didn’t lead to an increase of Korean films in theaters. Films like Sister Midnight make it clear that if the marketing will-power was there, they could. Apart from Anderson’s influence, it calls to mind Universal Language, Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person, and even Poor Things, all critically adored (regardless of box office). I highly recommend you give this one a shot, especially if you’re fortunate enough to be somewhere it’s playing on the big screen. You won’t regret it.