Sister Midnight, Karan Kandhari’s directorial debut, is an astonishingly complicated movie to evaluation with out spoiling the scrumptious secret at its heart. This twist crept up on me as I seen the movie and managed to really shock, which isn’t any small feat when it appears like so many fashionable movies are retreading the identical drained floor. Sister Midnight is filled with surprises, with Kandhari mixing genres with a refreshing fearlessness.
Kandhari does this largely efficiently, with some moments of aimlessness that drag down an in any other case vibrant movie. Nonetheless, this chaotic feminist fable appears like a breath of recent air in an period of cinema affected by tales primarily based on well-known IP and seemingly countless sequels.
Sister Midnight highlights the absurdity of home life and gender roles, with Radhika Apte giving a lead efficiency that anchors the movie. Apte performs Uma, a lady who has just lately entered into an organized marriage with a person she barely is aware of. Apte’s comedic timing is excellent, making me snigger out loud a number of instances with solely a slight gesture or change in facial features. The movie is mostly hilarious, however most humor stems from Uma’s reckoning with domesticity.
Sister Midnight eschews the necessity to romanticize ladies’s struggling.
The movie is unafraid of its feminine lead showing unglamorous, probably the greatest qualities of the movie. Plainly these days feminine characters should be primed for Pinterest boards and TikTok edits meant to aestheticize their despair, however Uma’s journey is relatable in its inelegance. That’s not to say that Apte shouldn’t be given a possibility to be pretty, however Kandhari shouldn’t be excited about romanticizing ladies’s struggling. As an alternative, he highlights Uma’s irreverent appeal within the face of her circumstances.
Apte delivers a efficiency that feels easy. Nonetheless, the movie wanted a extra cohesive narrative construction so as to enable Uma’s character journey to be extra coherent. Kandhari usually ends scenes abruptly, and whereas this often works the movie would have benefitted from lingering with the characters extra throughout sure moments. For instance, Uma’s relationship together with her husband Gopal (Ashok Pathak), may have used extra focus. It could have allowed for extra emotional resonance, one thing missing on this movie.
Nonetheless, moments of tenderness steadiness out the darkness and absurdism. Pathak performs Gopal, who may simply seem one-dimensional, with a vulnerability that affords the character higher, vital, depth. Uma’s good friend Sheetal, performed by Chhaya Kadam, is a welcome presence within the movie. Disappointingly, we solely see glimpses of their friendship, however nonetheless these glimpses into their dynamic really shine.
The underside line.
Many have in contrast Kandhari’s filmmaking type to that of Wes Anderson’s, and it’s an apt comparability from a purely aesthetic standpoint. Kandhari’s use of symmetrical pictures, music, and deadpan humor definitely evoke Anderson. Nonetheless, Kandhari plumbs darker depths than Anderson on this movie. His depiction of a lady at odds with the position assigned to her by society is a singular one, and Uma is a welcome addition to the canon of movie antiheroines.
Sister Midnight is out now in restricted theaters. Watch the trailer here.
Photographs courtesy of Magnet Releasing.
REVIEW RATING
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Sister Midnight – 7.5/10
