Movie Name: Santosh
Directed by: Sandhya Suri
Starring: Shahana Goswami, Sunita Rajwar, Sanjay Bishnoi, Kushal Dubey
Genre: Drama, Crime, Thriller
Running Time: 120 Minutes
Release Date: 10 January, 2025
Rating:
Production Companies: Good Chaos, Haut et Court, BBC Film, ZDF / Arte, Suitable Pictures, Razor Films Produktion, BFI
Budget: $2.5 million
Newly widowed Santosh inherits her husband’s job as a police constable in the rural badlands of Northern India. When a girl’s body is found, she’s pulled into the investigation under the wing of charismatic feminist inspector Sharma.
Santosh: Movie Overview
Santosh is a 2024 Hindi-language crime drama film written and directed by Sandhya Suri. It is an international co-production of the United Kingdom, India, Germany and France. Set in rural north India, it stars Shahana Goswami as a widow who inherits her late husband’s job of police constable. Principal photography occurred over 45 days in August–October 2023 in and around Lucknow, India.
Santosh had its world premiere in the Un Certain Regard section of the 77th Cannes Film Festival on 20 May 2024. It received positive reviews from critics and was named one of the top 5 international films of 2024 by the National Board of Review. The film was selected as the UK’s entry for Best International Feature Film at the 97th Academy Awards. and set to be theatrically released on 10 January 2025 in India.
It is about a 28-year-old widow who takes her late husband’s job as a police officer and has to investigate the case of a young girl’s murder.
The film premiered at the 77th Cannes Film Festival in May 2024. It has also been selected for the MAMI Mumbai Film Festival 2024, where it will compete in the South Asia Competition section. and set to be theatrically released on 10 January 2025 in India.
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 100% of 22 critics’ reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8/10. Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 77 out of 100, based on seven critics, indicating “generally favorable” reviews.
Movie Trailer:
Movie Review:
Santosh: A thoughtful study of power and powerlessness
Sandhya Suri’s film, starring Shahana Goswami and Sunita Rajwar, has been premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.
Hired on compassionate grounds to replace her police constable husband after his untimely death, Santosh comes to the job with a willingness to serve. She finds her natural empathy tussling with a taste of the authority she has never had.
Routine police work has been gutted by callousness. Sexist chatter is commonplace. Yet, the khaki uniform places Santosh in a position of relative privilege. While Santosh is no stranger to hidebound bias in her own life, a sensitive investigation into the rape and murder of a Dalit teenager tests her mettle.
Sandhya Suri’s Santosh, led by Shahana Goswami, is a thoughtful study of power and powerlessness in Indian policing. The documentary filmmaker’s feature debut has been premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the Cannes Film Festival (May 14-25).
Set in the fictional north Indian state Chirag Pradesh, Santosh views its titular heroine as both the investigator of and a witness to a horrific crime and its equally terrible aftermath. Suri’s screenplay, neither heavy-handed nor preachy, deftly personalises the manner in which gender dynamics, caste, community honour and religion skewer the pursuit of fairness.
Santosh’s moral predicament, which arises when a suspect appears to fit the bill a bit too perfectly, is similar to the inspector in Govind Nihalani’s Ardh Satya (1983) and the constable in Ivan Ayr’s Soni (2018). Like these characters, Santosh confronts the real nature of law enforcement, which was summed up by Bob Dylan: “To live outside the law, you must be honest.”
Santosh finds an ally in her seasoned superior officer Geeta (Sunita Rajwar). In the hesitant and naive young woman, Geeta sees a younger version of herself.
Yet, Geeta’s company proves double-edged for Santosh – one of the several ways in which Suri’s screenplay complicates the methods used by women to navigate a world determined by men. The relationship between Santosh and Geeta creates some of the film’s most revealing moments.
Santosh’s tentative movements are matched by Lennert Hillege’s sinuous camera. Suri’s non-fiction experience – she has previously made the personal documentary I for India and the archival footage-based Around India With a Movie Camera – is evident in her staging in Santosh.
The approach is observational; the acting as naturalistic as the location shooting. Goswami and Rajawar are the most recognisable members of the cast. Mostly unknown performers ably carry out Suri’s vision of a debased world in which vengeance is a synonym for justice.
The 128-minute movie is bookended by night-time sequences that create a vivid metaphor of Santosh’s journey. The device of a police procedural includes small details that linger in the memory: the uniform belonging to Santosh’s husband swinging from a washing line, making a “kee-kee” sound; a cobbler who also helps supplicants write police complaints.
The character sketching is impeccable too. Sunita Rajawar is fabulous as Geeta, a complex woman whose deportment has been borrowed from her male colleagues but whose understanding of the system is entirely her own.
Much of Shahana Goswami’s terrific performance is conveyed by Santosh’s tense, watchful ways. Her shoulders hunched and her body held taut with only her eyes revealing her emotions, Goswami gives her character enough of an inner life to make the conclusion of Santosh’s journey credible.
Santosh’s experiences are within mostly the realm of plausibility. As Santosh reaches her destination, Suri lets in unlikely – and not entirely earned – rays of hope, only to regain control by cutting to black.