Soni

Although SONI doesn’t explain the state-of-emergency nature of India’s fight against widespread, culturally sanctioned violence against women and girls, the movie provides a slice-of-life look at how one local urban police force tries, in some small way, to deal with the problem. According to their National Crimes Records Bureau, in 2016, rape of minor females in India increased by 82 percent over the year before. Soni (Geetika Vidya Ohlyan) is a somber and dedicated female police officer working with a unit trying to catch men who assault women in the streets of Delhi. She poses as an innocent woman walking down a dark street, and when a man following her on bike harasses her, she beats him up. Fellow officers in her unit have to pull her off. The rage within her is related to her recent pregnancy termination and the unsupportive response by her husband to the situation. Her superior, Kalpana (Saloni Batra), is empathetic and understanding but requires that Soni behave according to police regulations. Because she admires Soni’s dedication, she steps up to save her subordinate from disciplinary action from higher-ups, who are mostly male. The movie makes it clear that while local and national policies may be changing to recognize and combat widespread violence against women, attitudes at work and at home haven’t changed much. Kalpana is smart, competent, and mostly well-respected at work, but at home, her mother doesn’t hesitate to berate her publicly for not having a child. Soni’s older female neighbor constantly badgers her about getting back together with her estranged husband, making it clear that being a woman alone or a woman without a child is socially unacceptable.