‘Sister Midnight’ Showcases Profane, Star-making Performance

If anything, Sister Midnight will destroy preconceived notions of arranged marriage on film. From The World of Apu (1959) to Monsoon Wedding (2001), American audiences have seen Indian brides exist without agency, floating in a strange demure stasis. But not Sister Midnight, an offbeat and often profane fantasia that looks to break both social and cinematic conventions. 

In a star-making performance, Radhika Apte plays Uma, a woman sent off to be with her new husband in Mumbai, a place that is alien to her. Uma has no friends or family in this swirling metropolis. Her husband, Gopal (Ashok Pathak), lives in a grimy one-room apartment where Uma is confined during the day, expected to cook and clean. Gopal is always at work and comes home drunk late at night. He also has no interest in sex. Life basically sucks for Uma and she’s not happy about it.

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Writer-director Karan Kandhari turns Uma’s predicament into a dark comedy, in more ways than one. On a basic level, Sister Midnight is a domestic comedy. Uma doesn’t know how to be a housewife. She can’t cook or clean. She is also coarse and loves to swear, something frowned upon by the other women in her orbit. Her sexual frustration is palpable and played for laughs. At one point, she tries to seduce Gopal, but he responds with a handshake. 

But then something strange happens. Bizarre cravings overtake Uma at night. These vampiric appetites start small—a goat here, a bird there. Soon, Uma is thirsty for human blood. This tonal shift threatens to derail Sister Midnight and much of its second half is devoted to the fallout surrounding these impulses including a neighborhood witch hunt that puts Uma in the crosshairs.

This slide towards horror isn’t the only offbeat thing about Sister Midnight. Soundtracked by Paul Banks of Interpol fame, songs skid from the Stooges to Howlin’ Wolf to Marty Robbins, off-kilter anachronisms for a film completely in Hindi. Yet, Sister Midnight exists to break conventions, break Uma free from the hell of arranged marriage and us from our preconceived notions of what Indian cinema should or shouldn’t be.

If a Western comparison exists for Sister Midnight, it could be the films of Aki Kaurismäki. Much like in the Finnish director’s work, the characters here exist in a liminal, deadpan state, almost as if in a daze. This flatline existence makes each swear Uma utters even more powerful. She is a woman boxed in by society’s constrictions and she is not happy about it. Hear her curse. 

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