“Mimi” – Motherhood Could Not Have Been Showcased Better
An adaptation of the 2010 Marathi film “Mala Aai Vhhaychy!” (I Want To Be A Mother) by Samruddhi Porey, “Mimi” is the new comedy-drama film on Netflix jointly produced by Dinesh Vijan under his banner Maddock Films and Jio Studios.
Mimi (Kriti Sanon) is a happy-go-lucky small-town girl from Rajasthan with big dreams of becoming a Bollywood star. When she meets Bhanu (Pankaj Tripathi), an ambitious driver from Delhi, she buys into his scheme of making money by becoming a surrogate for an American couple Summer (Evelyn Edwards) and John (Aidan Whytock) who can’t conceive a child. Summer and John, both seemingly nice people, are heartbroken when they’re informed that their unborn child has down syndrome. They decide to give up on the child and suggest that Mimi get an abortion.
Already several months into the pregnancy, Mimi is left feeling abandoned and helpless. She decides to have the child and raise it as her own. Thus begins her selfless journey of sacrificing her dreams to become an actress and instead dedicating her life to raising a child that she was never meant to keep. As her best friend and biggest supporter Shama (Sai Tamhankar) rightly states, what you imagine for yourself isn’t life, what happens to you is life.
The story has much-desired genuity and social messaging that makes it one of the must-watches of the year. The doctor (Jaya Bhattacharya) makes a comment which calls out the issue of how many surrogates are abandoned during pregnancy and feel forced to abort the child. The movie also subtly reflects on the fact that it truly takes a village to raise a child. Despite not having parents in the traditional sense, Raj (Jacob Smith) never feels their absence and has a childhood filled with love from Mimi, her parents (Supriya Pathak and Manoj Pahwa), Shama, Bhanu, and his wife Rekha. The latter two treat Raj no less than they would if they had their own children. This kind of unconditional love is rare and heartwarming to watch in the film. Shama’s character is one of the most mature seen in modern Indian television. She’s a divorced Muslim woman who is living on her own and is self-sufficient. When Mimi is going through a tough time, Shama shares her own perspectives and draws from her own life experiences, which feel as real and relatable as I would if my own friend was sharing those with me.
The film has a beautiful and unexpected ending and comes with its own message about how there are more than 153 million orphan children in the world, enough to be the ninth-largest population in the world.
The entire film was made beautifully by director Laxman Utekar, and the vibrant colors of Rajasthan and its culture were captured by cinematographer Akash Agrawal. This was complemented by compositions by none other than A.R.Rahman with a mix of regional Rajasthani tunes as well as an English-Hindi fusion song Rock A Bye Baby sung by Julia Gartha and Rahman’s own daughter Khatija Rahman. The film’s success can be attributed to a combination of all of the above – the characters, the story, and the melodious background score.
