The look on Uma’s (Radhika Apte) face, as she raises her wedding veil to glimpse the noisy, litter-strewn city she will now call home, is one of abject horror. The failings of the marriage market have long proven artistically fertile but, unlike the Emma Bovarys before her, the combative Uma directly, and repeatedly, berates her bumbling husband, Gopal (Ashok Pathak). Anger radiates off her with such intensity that even her chewing seems defiant. The oppressive shack where she’s confined, absorbing the sounds and smells of Mumbai at all hours, only emphasises the excitement just out of reach. For Uma, sleeping rough (which she does on two occasions) is preferable to being there.

You’ve got to applaud Kandhari for having the guts to crack open his movie and reshape it.

Sister Midnight, writer-director Karan Kandhari’s BAFTA-nominated feature debut,initially plays like a marriage comedy. Much is made...