It’s hard to decide what Uma hates more – marriage in itself, her husband in particular or all of humanity. Uma (Radhika Apte) arrives in Mumbai from her village as Gopal’s bride, about as cheerful as a child who has been assigned homework during her summer vacation.
The bangles rattling on the bus transporting Uma to the city sound like chains – one of the several sonic clues to Uma’s fate in Karan Kandhari’s Sister Midnight. Kandhari’s debut feature, a deadpan comedy about repression and freedom, was completed in 2024 and has finally been released in India.
Gopal (Ashok Pathak) is too stupefied by Uma’s very presence in their one-room home to react adequately to her many provocations. Uma cooks badly, keeps house terribly and wanders off at will. Why can’t you be like the others, Gopal plaintively says, scarcely realising that Uma has a feral side that is aching to be let out.
The Hindi-language film’s English title has been literally translated as Sakhi Ratri, but surely it should have been Raat Rani. For that is what Uma is – a flower of the night, wild and growing in all directions as she chafes at Mumbai’s super-dense crush load and responds to her increasingly irrepressible impulses.
The 107-minute film has a fabular quality, with stylised views of working-class Mumbai and an anachronistic soundtrack (by American singer-musician Paul Banks). While the fantastical element in Kandhari’s screenplay is too generic to give a plausible sense of an Indian woman rebelling against social conventions, his particular staging and Radhika Apte’s knockout performance pay rich dividends.
Uma’s tilt towards unfeminine, unruly and unacceptable behaviour unfolds within a controlled visual design and frontal framing by cinematographer Sverre Sordal. Only Uma’s neighbour Sheetal (Chhaya Kadam) and a group of hijras understand her craving for liberation.
Radhika Apte is a blast, wearing Uma’s glumness like a superhero cape and wielding a cleaning mop like a witch’s broom. Apte’s sudden movements and flat voice work suggest a woman who isn’t trying to fit into a mould as much as she is attempting to shatter it.
Kandhari exploits Apte’s talent for drollery to the hilt. You’re a monster, Gopal says on the rare occasion when he manages to communicate with Uma. It’s hard enough being a human, she grimly replies, every inch the domestic demoness.
