It’s such a contrast that right after a storm of chest-thumping, loud, hero cop sensationally slow walking on screen, takes the nation by storm at the end of the year lecturing us on how to stop rapes, by taking laws in our own hands; this new year starts with a much grounded, real and atmospheric cop movie with two women battling the system along with fighting crime against women. It’s a story with the subtle voices against patriarchy, sexism may be even mansplaining and just the many things which make it difficult for women to do their job or simply exist on their own.

The two women cops who both enjoy some limited power and authority in their position are struggling to make their places in the man’s world, both in the home and the office.

Kalpana is a Superintendent of Police who is so soft-spoken, kind and motherly that she can easily be pass on as a doctor or some obedient ‘bahu’ from daily soap. A strong woman and self-aware professional with much-needed restraint who knows where the display of strength is required and where you can get out of a situation with some maturity.

Kalpana is so self-aware, she knows the place and the situation where she is, when she visits her newly promoted husband in his new office, the conversation between them suggests a relationship dynamic of more of senior and junior than a cordial and equal bond of husband and wife. She gets schooled by her husband for being too lenient and considerate towards her subordinates specially Soni.

Soni ,fierce cop, doesn’t spare anyone be it a lady lying her way out of a personal dispute, intoxicated defense personnel passing lewd comments or the harassers she traps in the Delhi Police Operfaion at night. She is helpless by her aggression and doesn’t shy from physically assaulting the criminals as punishment. She takes every crime against women as some personal vengeance and stops at nothing, not even at the cost of self-damage. In a scene, Soni gets totally amused by the way her colleague handles a man flirting with her on an emergency call in the police control room, she doesn’t know this calm and controlled way.

Kalpana is often put at risk because of Soni’s aggression but is strongly resilient towards her indiscipline, may be because she knows that in this man’s world, being Soni is essential.

She looks up to Soni and keeps coming back to her everytime as if she depends on her for sanity and strength. Just like Soni living on her own, she too is absolutely alone and undervalued in a large family.

They both bring credibility, vulnerability, and sensibility to their duties. It’s easy for the people around them to access them and even pick on them, be it interfering relatives or poking neighbors; they both deal with them with dignified silence and some indifference.

They do not evoke fear as other cops. It’s easy for a family dining next to them in a restaurant to share the birthday cake with Kalpana and Soni. They both look at the kids with longingness and love. It is quite obvious as we see one of them being slyly asked to visit a gynecologist as if she alone can give birth to a child and the other has probably lost hers.

The biggest strength of Soni lies in the fact that it doesn’t make superheroes out of its protagonists. Kalpana and Soni are not above the system both in their homes and the workplaces respectively. In one of the most terrifying and tensed moments of the film when Soni confronts 3 young brats occupying female toilet, we don’t get to watch Soni showing off her combat skills, the purpose of the director is clearly not to glamorize the female cops kicking some butts.

Debutant director Ivan Ayer’s direction and long single take trap the viewers into the time and space of Kalpna and Soni, we can’t escape their world easily. They are one of the greatest love/friendship stories in the movies.

Ivan Ayer and Kislay’s story is an ode to women police officers or professionals juggling their ways between family, society’s gender expectations and other’s distrust in their professional capacity. Soni and Kalpana are needed in this world as much to stop male police officers from harassing a couple in the name of moral policing as it is to investigate violent crimes against women.

‘Soni’ makes one furious without triggering, preaching and shocking , leaves us with a hope to keep the battle alive.