TIFF Review: “Santosh”

Santosh (Sandhya Suri, 2024) 3½ out of 5 stars

Director Sandhya Suri (Around India with a Movie) moves into narrative filmmaking with Santosh, her fiction debut. The titular lead character is a woman forced to navigate the patriarchal demands of the workplace after her husband, a constable, is killed during a riot. At risk of losing the apartment they shared, Santosh (Shahana Goswami, Zwigato) has few options to remain independent from either her in-laws (who despise her) or her own parents (who infantilize her). And so she gets a job.

In Santosh’s Northern Indian province, there is a government initiative in place to bring more women into the police force, so she is effectively offered the exact same position left open by her husband’s death. There’s only one other woman in the unit, and the two are given different tasks than their male counterparts. One such chore is accompanying the body of a recently drowned Dalit (aka “untouchable”) teenage girl to the morgue.

That death is what launches the plot into high gear. Santosh’s superiors only push for a superficial investigation. It appears to everyone’s benefit—including Santosh’s male chief—to end the matter quickly. After all, the girl is from India’s lowest caste. What does it really matter?

But then the older Sharma (Sunita Rajwar, The Conversion) arrives. She’s a detective who has successfully prosecuted sex crimes and murders—directed at women—before. As she begins to look more scrupulously at the circumstances of the girl’s death to determine if it was accidental or assault-related, Santosh takes note. Soon, the two start working together. They also grow closer.

Suri proves skillful at showing the quotidian details that inform this specific world. There are misogynistic aggressions both micro- and macro- directed at the female police officers almost constantly, though Sharma seems much more capable at deflecting them than Santosh. Then again, she’s been around for a while and has a strong case record that demands respect.

Before too long, their probe leads them to a suspect, a young Muslim man who showed intense interest in the girl. Is he the killer, or just an easy target given the widespread prejudice against his religion in today’s India? And what exactly are the methods that Sharma has used to catch other perpetrators?

Santosh examines these thorny issues through its protagonist’s increasingly troubled eyes. We learn that the rioter who killed her husband by throwing a rock was also Muslim, which complicates her own feelings. But as much as she gives into the worst side of herself, she also wants to do right.

It’s a complex film that often manages its competing themes well. There are times, however, when Suri introduces other ideas—hinting at Sharma’s possible homosexuality—that do little more than provide prurient window-dressing. The matter-of-fact presentation of anti-Muslim sentiment could also stand to be further deconstructed. Nevertheless, Santosh offers a compelling story bolstered by two strong performances.

Christopher Llewellyn Reed

Christopher Llewellyn Reed is a film critic, filmmaker, and educator, as well as Film Festival Today's Editor. A member of both the Online Film Critics Society (OFCS) and the Washington DC Area Film Critics Association (WAFCA), and a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic, Chris is, in addition, lead film critic at Hammer to Nail and the author of Film Editing: Theory and Practice.