Kriti Sanon’s Mimi Maybe Imperfect, But Raises Few Meaningful Issues

A review on Kriti Sanon’s Mimi released on Netflix. It is a bundle of contradictions- but an emotional ride that brings a lot of food for thought. 

A meaningful piece of art is always thought provoking. It stirs something within and helps us be better versions of ourselves. It can enlighten, it can educate. But sadly, not all, in the name of art, do that or are able to achieve that.

There’s usually a message or a theme in an artist’s work. They might touch upon other issues or themes on the way but to expect that they’ll address and resolve all of them in the same work might be too idealistic.

Or let’s say I chose to be less idealistic after I watched Mimi this week. A movie that aims to break stereotypes and talk about a topic that not many feel comfortable talking about, be it in urban or rural India.

So what does Mimi, the latest Bollywood film released on Netflix, really do?

Meaningful to be “tax-free”

Being a mainstream Bollywood movie, with names such as Kriti Sanon, Pankaj Tripathi and A R Rahman associated with it, the fact that it’ll reach the masses should be no revelation.

And when meaningful art reaches the right audience, it becomes better. It gets elevated to something that was always meant to be out in the open for everyone’s consumption.

This could be why we have the concept of “tax-free” movies in India. The tickets are sold without the usual tax so that more people can watch it in cinemas. Sounds like a 1990s concept isn’t it?
Well Toilet Ek Prem Katha, Hindi Medium and Airlift are some of the more recent examples.

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Coming back to Mimi, does it have a message? Does it achieve that “meaningful” status in 2021?
Does it address a social issue that’s relevant?
Yes It does.

For me, the climax was what brought it all together. I kept wondering throughout the film, how are they doing to revolve the issues at hand.

Kriti Sanon gives a brilliant performance, while Pankaj Tripathi continues to impress and make the audience fall in love with the character he plays.

Potential paradigms left untouched

So does Mimi disappoint then? Yes it does when it uses terms like Down Syndrome and “normal baby” loosely. When it fails to do its research on the adoption system in India.

Another problem that I noticed was the protagonist’s decision to choose a child over her career but not much about how she came to that decision.

Some of the issues the film could have talked about but chose not to:

Single motherhood
Surrogacy
Down syndrome
A woman’s choice of career over child

The orthodox family that turns supportive overnight and the Muslim friend who seems to be living without any social pressure is a rare phenomenon if you look at real life in our country.

But then I personally know such people. They do exist.

Unearths a big issue – the plight of orphans in India

So yes they could have chosen to portray all these challenges too. But with a limited time frame, you got to focus on one. And that one message that they are trying to put across is the plight of orphans in the world. The issue of adoption. The fact that if we create a nation of all orphans in the world right now, it’ll rank 9th in population.

And that with a support system, anything is possible. As a mother raising her toddler in another country during a pandemic, I couldn’t help but get misty-eyed over the scenes that truly depict the statement “It takes a village to raise a child.”

For now, I feel hopeful that these issues are being discussed in a mainstream Bollywood movie.
Watch this one for an emotional ride and a lot of food for thought.

Image courtesy- Youtube

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