We in the West let courts deal with most marriage issues with some exceptions, and cops only intervene when abuse happens, and I’ll speak my piece on that later. In Dehadrun, a city in Uttarkhand, northern India, the police has a different approach.

That’s because the police in Dehadrun have an all-female unit counselling couples. These couples have their unique conflicts, and he way Marriage Cops frames it, the unit works to prevent more serious conflicts. Or at least, to mitigate abuse that, mostly, men are inflicting towards their wives.

Marriage Cops comes from Cheryl Hess and Shashwati Talukdar, two documentary filmmakers with different approaches. Hess approaches it through gender and Talukar showing aspects to class, maybe caste.

Although Marriage Cops deals with heavy subject matter, it does have its moments of levity, that levity usually coming from scenes following the cops who point out each other’s quirks. Another scene in this documentary has the female officers pranking their male colleagues. A part of me wants the film to dig into that but then again work awaits them.

While watching Marriage Cops, one must be mindful of stereotypes even if they’re inevitable. In fairness, the camera can’t hide what it captures, like behaviour that seems, subjectively, unsavoury. A scene in Marriage Cops has a woman cowering as her mother-in-law threatens suicide, but even if it plays into chaos, the camera at least captures moments with a genuine aura.

Marriage Cops also shows the logistic side of making sides of a marriage accountable. Another scene has a sub-inspector demanding for a female officer to escort a complainant. All in all, this documentary is interesting even in its quiet moments. These quiet moments, though, let viewers anticipate the problems that these officers must fix.