Santosh
After being unjustly berated by her mother-in-law, young widow Santosh Saini (Shahana Goswami) discovers that not only will her policeman husband's widow's pension be pretty meager, the man she married for love having been killed in a riot not long after having joined the force, but that she will have to give up their government owned apartment. But, she is told, there is an Indian government program that allows a widow to inherit her husband's job with the same pay after training. Having no other options, she becomes Constable Saini and enjoys her newfound authority, but the rape and murder of a fourteen year-old girl in her rural district will have major repercussions for "Santosh."
Laura's Review: B+
For her first feature fiction debut, writer/director Sandhya Suri creates an indelible portrait of a woman embracing power for the first time only to face disillusionment of the worst kind, her own involvement in a terrible injustice. Shahana Goswami creates a character who doesn't say a lot, her observational facial expressions conveying Santosh's inner thoughts. Suri's film also works as a police procedural, albeit one focused more on closing a case than uncovering the truth. "Santosh" is the UK's submission, shortlisted for the 2025 International Oscar.
The quiet young woman we first meet can only make her opinion known by walking out of a room, which is what she does as her mother-in-law suggests she drover her son into the grave and spent all his money. After a decent cop helps her into the government program, Santosh at first appears to find her boss, Inspector Thakur (Nawal Shukla), encouraging, but when he asks her to stop by in the mornings to help his wife Priya, we see a shift flicker across her eyes. On duty, she meets a Dalit man, Ram Pippal (Anil Gudiya), who wishes to pay a cobbler to write up a police report for him as his daughter has been missing for two days. Full of compassion for his plight, Santosh intervenes, but when she brings him into Thakur's office, he and the other constables refuse to do anything, laughing away the distraught man's concern. When Devika Pippal's mutilated body is found and Thakur makes grossly insensitive comments on TV, he is transferred and the case is handed to Inspector Geeta Sharma (Sunita Rajwar).
Santosh is awed by this confident older woman who appears to move easily in a man's world and is flattered when Sharma takes her under her wing, nudging Santosh into a primary role in the investigation. The younger woman will visit Devika's Dalit village where locals will point her towards a dead cat, found in the same well as the teenager's body. She is surprised by Davika's mother's antagonism towards her, but she points Santosh toward her daughter's meager belongings where Santosh will find multiple texts on the girl's flip phone from a Muslim boy named Saleem. Devika's mother practically spits her contempt when asked about him, stating 'we don't know any Muslims.' Throughout her film, Suri injects the contempt felt for those lower on India's hierarchical caste ladder, even those considered 'untouchable' having no use for a Muslim.
Santosh's innate nose for police work leads her to Saleem (Arbaz Khan), physically capturing the boy along with Sharma, but we can see her begin to waver during the boy's unrelenting and brutal 'interrogation' as well as Sharma's nonchalant attitude, especially when she begins to question the boy's innocence. And yet she will participate in his beating, caught between her admiration for her mentor and her own bottled up emotions.
Although the film belongs to Goswami, Sunita Rajwar is also unforgettable as the older woman whose worldview has been compromised by experience and who subtly hints she might be looking for more than a protege in Santosh. Rajwar's Sharma keeps Santosh close with warmth and thoughtfulness tempered with cool command, brandishing her authority in the way she wields her cigarette. Also fine in a small role is Sanjay Bishnoi as Beniwal, another father with a young daughter at the opposite end of the caste system, chilling in his entitlement. 'There are two types of untouchables in this world,' Sharma tells Santosh, 'those who you don't want to touch and those you cannot.'
Metrograph Pictures released "Santosh" in select theaters onn 12/27/24, opening wider in subsequent weeks.
