A remarkable performance from Bollywood star Radhika Apte as an unhappy new bride drives Karan Kandhari’s wildly audacious feature debut

This chewy, macabre, deliciously odd feature from British director Karan Kandhari is quite the palate cleanser. A UK-financed, India-set comedy that’s as sticky and dark as congealed blood, Sister Midnight is a bold, defiantly feral and immensely entertaining portrait of a newlywed bride who finds herself singularly ill-suited to her arranged marriage. The central character, Uma, is brought to angular, abrasive life by a sublime turn from Radhika Apte, a star in mainstream Bollywood cinema who co-starred with Dev Patel in Michael Winterbottom’s The Wedding Guest (2018).

Sister Midnight is a movie with a big personality; film-making that doesn’t just break the rules, it seems blissfully oblivious to the fact that there even are any. I have no idea how it got through the meat-grinder, low-budget production process that generally seems designed to smooth down the edges and remove any interesting gristle from a finished film, but I couldn’t be happier that it did. Not all of the big swings and risks pay off, but there’s not a moment here that feels safe or creatively compromised. Every deranged frame is to be cherished.