Doc Edge 2025: Marriage Cops (dirs. Shashwati Talukdar, Cheryl Hess) | Review
Marriage Cops charms with warmth and absurdity as it shows the progress and challenges of a police squad tasked with preserving marriages. This debut feature had its world premiere at Hot Docs and had its Australasian premiere at the Doc Edge Festival.
In their first feature length documentary Marriage Cops, codirectors Cheryl Hess and Shashwati Talukdar pick a tender topic. Set in Dehradun Police Station in Northern India, a special police force is tasked with “protecting the cultural institution of marriage”. The officers are part of The Woman’s Helpline initiative and see over a thousand cases each year.
The problems that are to be resolved are familiar – disinterest and disrespect, physical abuse and alimony payments. However, others are ghastly to a privileged First World eye. We witness harsh realities such as accusations of child trafficking or child brides eager to escape their fate.
The film focuses on three couples with a few interjections from other cases and many more waiting in the crowded hallways of the station. “Ours was an epic story,” announces Rupali as she cleans her baby’s clothes on the floor of her decrepit bathroom – the baby’s father Brijesh no longer feels the same attraction. Garima is happily remarried after suffering through her husband’s endless bachelor-like parties and rejection. Anita, who fought to be allowed to see her son, wasn’t found after the filming so her fate remains unclear.
What gives Marriage Cops roundness is a mirror it turns to the officers who deal with the cases. We see them distributing orders (justice might be too eager a word) as well as in more relaxed settings during lunchtime when they get a chance to share their private lives and thoughts. Out of all the employees of the Woman’s Helpline, Officer Pushpa stands out. A young officer finds it hard not to cry on the job sometimes, looking at the cases she deals with as a warning. “We see so much fighting here, why do it at home?” she reasons naively.
Another notable character in the film is the paperwork that the officers fill out and rummage through. It fills the official rooms, sometimes to the brim, and offers both a lived-in cosy backdrop to officers who spend their working hours surrounded by it. There is a touch of nostalgia to the pen and paper that is used. As well as connections and acquaintances that help track down missing husbands and their families.
The cases just like the files seem endless. The everyday bustle of the Dehradun Police Station is discouragingly harsh. However, the kooky idea of police officers dedicated to the institution of marriage alongside Hess and Talukdar’s pervasive lens leave the viewer with a hopeful and enchanted image of a piece of India’s everyday.
Doc Edge Festival is celebrating 20 years of “Life Unscripted” from 25 June to 13 July 2025 in Auckland. Revisit our on-site coverage of last year’s edition here.
