A One Mann’s Movies review of “Sister Midnight” (2024) (From the 2024 London Film Festival).
With “The Apprentice” out in cinemas at the weekend I decided to dodge that LFF offering in favour of “Sister Midnight”: a much smaller niche film from the Indian writer/director Karan Kandhari. It’s a dark punk comedy that goes to some surprising places!
Bob the Movie Man Rating:
“Sister Midnight” Plot Summary:
Uma (Radhika Apte) arrives in Mumbai with her new husband Gopal (Ashok Pathak) after an arranged marriage. They live in a one-room house in a terraced row and she is generally neglected. Bored and listless, she gets no sex. (Indeed, it seems unlikely her marriage has ever been consumated.) Her only friend is the next door neighbour Sheetal (Chhaya Kadam), but just to rub it in she regularly hears her having sex with her husband. As Uma’s frustration grows, she seeks external work of her own and develops a strange affinity to songbirds and goats!
Certification:
UK: 12A; US: PG-13. (From the BBFC web site: “Infrequent strong language, moderate sex references, medical detail”)
Talent:
Starring: Radhika Apte, Ashok Pathak, Chhaya Kadam.
Directed by: Karan Kandhari.
Written by: Karan Kandhari.
Running Time: 1h 50m.
“Sister Midnight” Summary:
Positives:
- Vibrantly brings to life city-living in India (Mumbai).
- Lots of laugh-out-loud moments and some images that stay with you, mostly goat related!
- Terrific soundtrack with some great and unusual choice of songs.
Negatives:
- It will be a little too “out there” for some viewers I think.
Review of “Sister Midnight”:
Surprising musical choices.
One of the surprising things about this Indian film is the choice of music and that hits you right from the get-go. We finish (and indeed end) with the sight of railroad tracks zapping past the camera, but the opening is accompanied with vibrant blues music that you really don’t expect to hear in an Indian movie. The musical numbers continue to surprise, with Country and Western numbers, the odd Bollywood beat and even some glam rock!
Mumbai life.
Having already seen “Santosh” this week, set in a rural Indian village, the Mumbai setting here couldn’t be more different. Kandhari chooses to regularly pan along the line of ‘terraced’ properties, giving us a voyeuristic view of multiple resident’s lives through the open doors. It must have taken great timing and lots of rehearsals to get the final shot.
The street scenes are also vibrant and full of life and colour.
Uma’s friendships also add interest to the movie. Sheetal teaches her to cook, basically telling her to throw enough spice and salt into everything and the men will “eat anything”! Her friendship with a group of trans women, near where she works, adds further interest. They call her “moonchild” because of her pale complexion and there is a running joke about what ‘whitening cream’ she is using.
I never realised before that Mumbai had a ‘seaside’, as Uma takes the train from Khar Central to the end of the line at Churchgate. A depressed Uma sits on the promenade wall with a sobbing businesswoman to her right and a sobbing businessman to her left: sometimes you realise that everyone has their own issues.
Radhika Apte.
Glueing the whole piece together is a riveting performance by Radhika Apte as Uma. She oozes charisma from every pore, expressing disdain for her husband’s useless behaviour and surprise when she finds a dead goat oozing blood.
You progressively realise that something is seriously wrong with Uma as she fails to eat proper food and keeps vomiting and fainting. When the realisation comes as to what is wrong with her and how it can be fixed, I genuinely went “Whooaaaah”! And she finally does get her much needed sex: when her husband Gopal finally does succomb to her, he really gets the ride of his life!
There’s a final shot of Uma hanging out of the side of a train like some bizarre Indian goth-icon that is one of the memorable cinema images of 2024 for me.
Hilarious Birds and Goats.
Adding a really bizarre element to the plot are some birds and goats, done with dodgy animation. When you first see them, particularly the goats, I thought “wtf am I watching”. But then you get into the groove of the dodgy SFX and you realise it is being fully played for laughs. Really very funny indeed.
Summary Thoughts on “Sister Midnight”
This is a very different film, striking and memorable. It will certainly not be for everyone, as it is very much ‘out there’ in its storytelling. But in a landscape of same old-same old cookie-cutter horror movies, this is a stunningly different black-comedy offering, with an essence of comic-horror, that will stick in my memory for a long time.
It’s due for release in the UK on 14th March 2025, but will probably only be a limited release: keep an eye out for it!
Where to Watch it (Powered by Justwatch)
At the time of writing, this film was not yet available on the Justwatch database.
Trailer for “Sister Midnight”:
The trailer is not yet available, but here is a clip from the film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZX-IlLa-BJk.
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