SISTER MIDNIGHT - Mark Reviews Movies

Sister Midnight, Magnolia Pictures

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Review by Mark Dujsik | May 15, 2025

At first, Sister Midnight is a very human comedy about a new wife who's disappointed by and frustrated with the realities of married life. Without saying too much too early, writer/director Karan Kandhari's movie gradually becomes something of an inhuman comedy. Both of these ideas are promising and, in the hands of the filmmaker and the cast, quite funny, but the jarring dichotomy of these modes means the material doesn't form a cohesive whole.

To be sure, Radhika Apte shows a lot of natural charm and a penchant for comedic timing as Uma, the aforementioned newlywed who moves to Mumbai after marrying Gopal (Ashok Pathak). The husband has gotten a job in the city, and the couple's home is a cramped space with thin walls, lots of noise coming from outside, and no real, effective way to block the blaring sun from coming through the sole window of the house. That last detail is surprisingly important—and not simply because Uma quickly becomes a night owl who'd like to be able to get some sleep during the day.

That's when Gopal's at work, after all, and it's not as if Uma has much to do at home. Then again, the husband's return home after work isn't exactly productive or enjoyable, either. Gopal is often late, telling his wife that he went out for drinks with co-workers. When he is home in time for dinner, Uma initially doesn't know how to cook, but with the help of neighbor Sheetal (Chhaya Kadam), she learns the basics. That's not enough, however, to ensure that Gopal does come home at a reasonable hour or that the husband actually spends any quality time with his wife.

There are awkward silences here that speak more about this couple than any words could. The sudden, almost reflexive way both Uma or Gopal dart away from each other whenever the other starts to speak or the quiet suggests that a conversation could start at that moment might be even more telling. As for sex, that's not even an unspoken subject for the two. Uma is willing and even eager to have that kind of quality time with her husband, but Gopal just flips over on his side whenever his wife touches him in bed or just pretends not to notice when she's waiting for him naked under the sheets.

Kandhari communicates much about this relationship and much of this story without words. That's both because such is the state of this marriage, which we soon learn is an arranged one, and because the movie's comedic style is the stuff of increasingly absurd sight gags. The director stages those in mostly flat compositions, suggesting the setups of a silent-era comedy, the blocking of a theatrical production, or even the panels of a comic strip. The humor is in the visuals of how uncomfortable—and in how many ways, from the interpersonal interactions to the settings—life is for Uma, the lengths to which she'll go to try to find some kind of contentment, and, eventually, the ways in which the new wife starts to become someone—or, maybe, something—else entirely.

Uma does become a creature of the night. That's a figurative state, at first, as she takes a job as a night cleaner at an office building that's quite a long walk from home. There, she gets to embrace both the night and the silence—cleaning the space, taking cigarette breaks or time to star up at the sky on the roof, walking home without the hustle and bustle of the city. Kandhari gives these scenes a sense of solace that's nowhere else in the story, but since that's not exactly a solution to Uma's real problems at home and with her life more generally, this isn't a resolution.

In fact, it becomes more of a complication, because Kandhari takes that idea of Uma becoming a creature of the night more literally—or, to put it more accurately, more mythically. One of the reasons, perhaps, that the two, distinct modes of this story don't cohere as well as they might have otherwise is how sudden, inexplicable, and seemingly random the shift in Uma is. One day, she's exhausted, ill, and pale (Nobody really notices, and indeed, women stop to ask what kind of cream she's using to obtain that look), and another night, she encounters a young goat on the street and chases after it to fulfill a newly formed instinct inside her (A gag when she's nearly caught with the aftermath of that incident is a simple bit, but it also says something about how apathetic and inattentive city life can be).

The rest of the story follows that path for Uma, as her hunting continues, her health and attitude and self-confidence improve, and her desire to make something of her marriage is seemingly renewed. To be clear, Sister Midnight remains amusing (The use of stop-motion animation in some key visual effects has a very funny unnatural quality) and follows this development to its absurd, as well as dark, end. The experience of the movie, however, remains a divided one—not only because the change of purpose here come across so quickly and with little foundation, but also because the material is far more engaging, understandable, and relatable in its human story than in what it eventually becomes.

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