The odd Indian eventuality of a cop’s wife taking his job if he dies in service is the driver of Santosh, documentarian Sandhya Suri’s feature debut, a fascinating and thrilling Serpico-style story of corruption, discrimination and the outsider/insider dynamic.
Suri does it largely in documentary style. After a fly-on-the-wall introduction to Santosh, a widow threatened with destitution because her dead husband’s family have no interest in supporting her, we’re into the meat of the story – Santosh discovers there is a way for her to earn a living. Under the “compassionate recruitment” scheme, she is offered a faint simulacrum of her husband’s job – “lady police work” the officer interviewing her says. Once in post she discovers what that means – all the crappy jobs the men don’t want to do, like escorting suspects to the toilets. She’s also expected to help her boss’s wife about the house. She signed on largely to keep her husband’s pension, so she’s resigned to it, but this is not at all what the bright-eyed, justice-minded Santosh (Shahana Goswani) hoped for.
Things start to change once her male chauvinist boss Thakur (Nawal Shukla) is transferred out, Geeta Sharma (Sunita Rajwar) takes his place and together Sharma and Santosh start investigating the case that Thakur wouldn’t touch – the rape and murder of a Dalit (aka Untouchable) teenager, whose dead body was dumped in a well.
The arc of the investigation is tracked by Santosh’s own journey towards enlightenment. The cops are corrupt, something her husband had never quite conveyed to her – because he was obviously in on it – and she is appalled by the flagrant misuse of power and the routine beatings and torturings suspects are subjected to.
Suri’s point – a police force like this, where sexism is rife and a crime is only investigated if you’re the right sort of person, is entirely unsuited to the sort of modern country India aspires to be.
She knows we have seen this sort of thing before and doesn’t overdo the sexism/casteism/corruption angle. It’s a background to the case, to the developing relationship beween rookie Santosh, and the hard-bitten, seen-it-all Sharma and to Santosh’s own rite-of-passage into being a fully fledged member of the police force. But where does fitting in end and complicity in police corruption begin?
As said, documentary style, lots of street flavour, which includes not being overly worried if a member of the public is staring boggle eyed into the lens. Suri recruited non-actors to play minor roles, including one passer-by who stopped to ask what was going on, and one member of the catering crew.
A semi-noirish vibe is what she seems to be after and she achieves it. There’s a real sense of jeopardy, especially when Santosh is out on her own on the streets after dark.
If endarkenment is the opposite of enlightenment, Santosh is on that journey, and Goswami is excellent as the eager beaver seeking justice for one young woman, and making unsavoury compromises all the way. She’s slightly eclipsed by Rajwar, whose rake of micro reaction shots suggest the oceans of wearying experience of the older officer.
Santosh is a good twisted story that starts fast and furious but after a while the isms slow it to a meander. See it maybe as elegance, and forgive it because the acting is so good. To be filed alongside Mystery Road or Wind River, also whodunits set in outsider communities.
As I write (1 November 2025) Santosh still hasn’t been shown in India, neither in cinemas or via streaming channels. Someone clearly would rather it wasn’t seen.
Santosh – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
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© Steve Morrissey 2025
