Guwahati: In a world full of Haseen Dilrubas, Ajeeb Daastaans and Shubh Mangal Zyaada Saavdhans, be a Mimi. Delivering India its very first ‘mainstream surrogacy’ film four days before the release date (premature they call it), director Laxman Utekar does a brilliant job in explaining the heart-warming bits, the not so pretty bits and calling out the sexism.
Kriti Sanon as Mimi has beautifully portrayed the role of the protagonist in this Laxman Utekar film. And talking about Pankaj Tripathi, he is brilliant with his witty expressions and perfect comedy dialogue delivery timing.
A total family entertainer – ‘Mimi’ boasts of an excellent casting which includes talented artists like Pankaj Tripathi, Sai Tamhankar, Supriya Pathak and Manoj Pahwa in pivotal roles.
An official remake of the National-award winning Marathi movie ‘Mala Aai Vhhaychy!’, ‘Mimi’ tells the story of a girl from Jaipur who aspires to become a ‘top heroine’ of Bollywood. The movie starts with a childless foreign couple hunting for a healthy girl in India to carry their child. They reject the girls they meet in Delhi and head towards Jaipur to continue their search. Pankaj Tripathi (Bhanu), who plays the role of a driver, comes to the foreign couple’s rescue when he takes them to a hotel where they spot Mimi (played by Kriti Sanon) performing. John and Summer, the childless foreign couple likes Mimi and selects her to be the surrogate mother for their child.
Mimi, on the other hand, is struggling to collect money by performing in luxury hotels for foreigners and other guests. She does this to go to Mumbai and fulfill her dream of becoming an actress. Well, when John and Summer hint at paying a lot of money to Mimi for carrying their child, the latter agrees. During her pregnancy, Mimi stays at her best friend Shama’s (played by Sai Tamhankar) house to hide the truth from her family. Bhanu accompanies Mimi as her husband to Shama’s house to stop raising eyebrows in the society when the stomach shows up. As Shama’s character is portrayed as a Muslim in the movie, Mimi stayed under burkha the whole time and no one could recognise her.
Everything was going fine until one day when the fertility clinic revealed that the baby Mimi was carrying is mentally disabled and had down syndrome. This broke down the real set of parents – John and Summer, who then refuses to accept this child and asks Mimi to abort it.
Well, not only Mimi but everyone else accepts the child as their own. Given her craze for Hindi movies, Mimi decides to name her son ‘Raj’. The child brings a lot of happiness into Mimi’s world and fills Bhanu and his wife’s void of being childless for 12 years. Raj becomes the apple of everyone’s eye and they all lead their life happily until one day, after 4 years, Raj’s real parents John and Summer come back. After finding out that their child is perfectly normal and alive, they demand to take back Raj. This gives rise to an emotional journey for all the characters in the movie as it has been beautifully portrayed in ‘Mimi’ that one need not give birth to be a real parent. Nevertheless, after going through a turmoil of emotions of romanticising motherhood, the film ends on a happy note where John and Summer adopts an orphan and decides to leave Raj with Mimi.
‘Mimi’ is not only focused on surrogacy but also highlights a number of issues like childlessness, orphanage, racism and many more. Kriti Sanon exquisitely portrayed the emotional fight with oneself, society and dreams. Though this movie is to date Kriti Sanon’s best performance, for actors like Pankaj Tripathi, Supriya Pathak and Manoj Pahwa, the script could not do full justice to their brilliant acting skills. Being the flair artist that he is, Pankaj Tripathi, however, did full justice to his character in the movie. He is like fine wine; just gets better with every performance.
In a nutshell, ‘Mimi’ is a must-watch and it is currently streaming on Netflix and Jio Cinema.
