Sister Midnight (2024) ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐

A genre-bending comedy about a frustrated and misanthropic newlywed who discovers certain feral impulses that land her in unlikely situations.

Look, kids, marriage is hard. It’s learning that you’ll have to deal with another humans’ idiosyncracies for..the..rest..of..your…life. Thrust into an arranged marriage and having to leave her happy, well-cared for existence, Uma (Radhika Apte) is thrown into an cultural deadspace and the expectations on her to become the all-knowing homemaker have her gnashing her teeth. Karan Kandhari’s black comedy Sister Midnight finds Uma already at the end of her rope by the honeymoon. Her new husband Sheetal (Ashok Pathak) is lazy, prudish, and completely inept at running a household. Fed up with the clustered, and loveless day in and day out of her new homestead, Uma seeks fulfillment elsewhere and finds employment working third-shift as janitorial staff, and that’s where things take a turn for the feral.

Apte is sensational as the harried Uma, searching endlessly to find her own freedom and journey, regardless of her current obligations. The film’s everchanging scenery and smash-cut mayhem lend further to the bestial call from within Uma. A metaphoric exemplar of the global and societal expectations put on women and the yearn to live one’s life on their own terms.

“Sister Midnight” premiered at the London Film Festival on October 16th and has an expected March 2025 release.