Film Notes

Santosh review – gripping police procedural about the murky side of modern India.

​Documentary-maker Sandhya Suri’s remarkable feature debut​ pitches a new female cop into a ​complex rural murder case.

This is a phenomenal achievement: the feature film debut from British-Indian former documentary maker Sandhya Suri is a punchy, muscular Hindi-language police procedural set in rural north India. Elegantly scripted by Suri, Santosh combines gripping, gritty storytelling with a deft acknowledgment of some of the murkier aspects of modern India: the police corruption and brutality, the baked-in sexism, the caste prejudice and anti-Muslim sentiment. It strikes a tricky balance between perceptive, issue-led film-making and propulsive entertainment.

The movie was this year’s UK submission to the international Oscar category, but due to problems with the censors is yet to be released in India. It follows the journey of the eponymous central character. Recently widowed Santosh (a magnetic, watchful turn by Shahana Goswami) is, thanks to a government scheme, offered her late husband’s job as a police officer. It’s an opportunity that grants her independence from her hectoring, judgmental in-laws and a growing self-respect. Level-headed, serious and diligent, Santosh is instinctively suited to the job. When a scandal involving the murder of a Dalit (the lowest caste) girl threatens to ignite local unrest, Geeta (Sunita Rajwar, excellent), the veteran female cop brought in to quell the rising tension, immediately spots Santosh’s potential and brings her on to the case as her second-in-command.

It is, Santosh soon realises, a dubious honour. Geeta’s slippery charisma and ruthlessness earn the respect of her male colleagues, but her methods are suspect and her motives, in supporting her younger colleague, opaque. Through the quiet intelligence of Goswami’s impressive performance, we grasp, as she does, that a case closed doesn’t necessarily mean that justice has been done.

Wendy Ide, The Guardian, 22nd March 2024

India’s misogyny runs so deep that, in “Santosh,” a woman is forced to choose between houselessness and being a cop. She chooses the latter. That decision comes with some benefits: housing, pay, and freedom of movement. It also comes with one glaring drawback: the sexism of her male coworkers. For a time, the indignities she faces are enough to stomach. That is until a local girl is found murdered at the bottom of a well. The ensuing investigation not only ignites unrest. It also hits several raw nerves: the caste system, police brutality, and corruption. And while “Santosh” approaches these issues with a startling bluntness, its impact is rarely felt beneath the surface.  

The UK entry for the 97th Academy Awards, writer/director Sandhya Suri’s grim character study is arrestingly composed and painfully obvious. It geographically takes audiences from Mumbai down back roads to small villages on an investigation that tests the resolve of its protagonist. 

The woman in question is the recently widowed Santosh Saini (an engaging Shahana Goswami). Her husband, a cop, died not long ago after a stone struck him during a riot in Nehrat. Santosh’s mother-in-law despises her for supposedly being promiscuous and lavish, so finding income from his family isn’t an option. Her husband was only on the force for a couple of years, so he didn’t leave much of a pension. Now that he’s dead, their government-issued flat is also open for another family to move in. There is a law, however, that could help Santosh. If she chooses, she may inherit her husband’s position, thereby keeping his salary and earning from his pension. At 28 years old, becoming a cop is the best option.

Goswami plays Santosh as quiet and anxious. The way her tense frame moves around her fellow cops suggests that she’s trying to bear the daily agony of performing a job she never really wanted. None of her male counterparts are particularly inviting. An Inspector Thakur (Nawal Shukla) presents himself as giving but ultimately is a stone-faced sexist. As for her duties, she’s either walking Thakur’s white pup, helping his wife out around the house, or enforcing anti-sex morality codes against teenagers trying to make out in parks. She doesn’t find her place in this web or an ally in this department until the veteran Geeta Sharma (Sunita Rajwar) arrives to take over the investigation of the murdered girl. 

With the pairing of the amendable Santosh and the authoritarian Geeta, Suri forms a fascinating generational dynamic. Geeta’s male counterparts fear her and enjoy her company. She’s the kind of woman who’s climbed up the ladder precisely because she knows what jokes to crack, which ones to critique, and which ones to quietly ignore. She’s also a crack investigator who immediately suspects the girl’s missing boyfriend might be the prime suspect. Suri also points to a potential queer tension between the two women but stops short of ever pushing the envelope. It’s the kind of reticence that becomes a consistent frustration in “Santosh.”

While Santosh is always observing, she never speaks. So she never verbalizes her thoughts, fears, or concerns when her male colleagues torture, cheat, and defame witnesses and suspects. Instead Suri demands the audience use Goswami’s expressive face as a guide. That approach works for a time because Goswami is visibly articulate. But that strategy can also give “Santosh” shallow depth where the witnessing of prejudice or police brutality is purely visceral rather than studied. 

“Santosh” also suffers from arriving the same year as Payal Kapadia’s satisfying feminist statement “All We Imagine as Light,” a film far more adept at subtly instilling personal politics into its characters. “Santosh,” conversely, might be in your face, but it doesn’t say nearly as much. This isn’t to say that two Indian women need to share the same approach, but Kapadia’s softer touch marks the difference between these two feminist films. 

In its own way, “Santosh” is exceptionally crafted, too. With precision and detail, Suri depicts the stark economic gap between the wealthy and the disadvantaged as her camera roves from palatial homes to one-room squalors. She also fills the frame, taking in the bustling urban life occurring around Santosh, often basking in the natural glow of exteriors teeming with life.

The clarity of these compositions in a film about the murky morality of policing creates a smart aesthetic tension in “Santosh” as well. Santosh wants to do good. But is that an impossible desire to hold in such a corrupt force? Is all fair when you’re fighting for voiceless women in a systemically unjust country? When Suri’s film asks those questions, it makes for an unflinching anti-police tale whose inquiries rise above the film’s other frank emotional beats. Even at its most traumatic, “Santosh” gives viewers plenty to consider.   

Robert Daniels, Roger Ebert.com, 24th December 2024.

What you thought about Santosh

Film Responses

Collated Response Comments

113 members and guests attended the first screening of the 19^th season, Santosh. We received 50 responses giving a film score of 4.18 and a response rate of 44%.

Your collected responses are shown below.

“Apart from the small issue of disrupted projection, this was even more enjoyable at my second time of viewing. It was riveting, occasionally almost too tough to watch but fully justifying the Society's choice of the season's opening film”.

“Firstly, thank you so much for creating the original trailer for the GFC--it must have taken a great deal of effort, and it is truly appreciated. Regarding Santosh, I liked how the film was social and political yet subdued through the protagonist, until her sudden eruption of violence. Though set in India, it spoke to a universal truth: where entitlement, disregard, disrespect, and narcissism exist, layered violence prevails beyond police control.

The ending, with her departure for Mumbai, was quietly reassuring yet unresolved. Was it meant to be hopeful? The passing of the nose stud (traditionally a marker of marriage and womanhood in India) to a little girl vendor felt significant: perhaps a gesture of independence, a reckoning with her past, or the quiet planting of a positive future? Still, why she chose to do this remains open. Some questions linger, but overall, it was a promising start to the film club. Thank you”.

“Well, that's a film to start a season! Guess we weren't supposed to 'like' it, but its multi-layered quality was gripping with striking character development. Equally, the documentary style fitted the elements well; India's society, patriarchy, class and religion, as well as personal grief set against an apparent desire of Santosh to do good gave the story many threads. Any ethics slowly shift away, as is a determination to fight corruption of a range of evident evils. Thought that Goswami as Santosh was convincing as she says so little for much of the film: she listens and watches with occasional brutality responses. Her female superior Sharma, ambivalent with mixed feminist convictions, is as ruthless as any of the male police. The oppression of one group does not occur in a vacuum, and suffering is connected elsewhere, so that trauma creates trauma.

Liked the technical quality; for example, the murdered girl's father is filmed from above and framed below mocking police, a symbolic visual image. Light and dark reflect each other across the film, especially during the torture of the 'suspect'. Water as a symbol of cleaning is also a marker of corruption in a poisoned well. A mixture of character development and hitches keeps our attention, yet the pace slows after nearly two hours Still well worth seeing”.

“Good powerful film about dark underbelly of India. Treatment of women, and the caste system. However, I felt sick with the violence, Prob wouldn't have come, had I known. No indication of it. Only PG: really? I'm not usually one for trigger warnings but would have liked one. I’ll have to do diligence in future...Impressive how a piercing from the UK could portray such a powerful side of India”.

“It was hard to watch the torture scenes but the film was totally absorbing, gritty and well-acted. It showed a side to India that you don't normally see on film”.

“Good start to the new season. Felt for Santosh after losing her husband, facing vile in-laws and being given little option but to do a job she didn't want to in a misogynistic environment, but then watched her grow through the film. Not always easy to follow where the action was taking place as scenes jumped around and the occasional blips in streaming didn't help. Perhaps a bit too long but worth the watch and good to be back! Thanks”.

“A powerful, but uncomfortable film to kick off the new season! The performances were excellent and the cinematography too. It covered so many issues & "isms" all of which fed the ingrained culture of corruption. Not an easy watch and a little too long. Shame about the technical issue causing hiccups”.

“Harrowing and challenging in the struggle to maintain integrity in Indian society”.

“Fantastic start to the new season. The truth about the caste system is appalling. I wonder if it will ever be sorted out. It is something that is ignored by the higher castes and ever will be. An amazing truthful film. I am left feeling very sad”.

“Tense but overlong”.

“A thought-provoking boundary pushing film. Giving an underrepresented perceptive on Indian life. Terrifying at points, tender at others. Outstanding”.

“Harrowing but gripping story of police corruption”.

“A very difficult watch but entirely compelling”.

“Very disturbing and upsetting”.

“A little blood thirsty. I enjoyed it but felt a little confused by the ending”.

“I enjoyed it but it was a difficult watch”.

“Rather uncomfortable viewing but a well-presented view of Indian caste society. Shame about the breaks in the film”.

“Very atmospheric. A bit slow but rewarded out patience at the end”.

“A gruelling grim watch but very realistic, I guess. Kept me gripped but I would not watch it again. I rated it as good”.

“Pretty gruesome!” “Bit harrowing”.

“Great cinematography and acting but a very tough watch”.

“Interesting insight into Indian justice – uncomfortable viewing at times”.

“What a tragic story and a sad reflection on the role of women in India even today!! Shame about the breaks in projection! Sadly, they seemed to be at a very vital and inopportune time in the story (especially with subtitles). Can this be rectified in the future?”

“Brilliantly directed and actors really suitable – a great depiction of life in that underdeveloped Northen part of India”.

“Good film but too violent for me”.

Overlong, too much violence. Well-acted”. “Too violent”. “Depressing”.

“Great actors and actresses but boring and dull film”.

“Was a bit disjointed”.