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Jio Studios and Maddock Films’ Mimi (UA) is the story of a surrogate mother. Mimi (Kriti Sanon) lives in Rajasthan and dreams of becoming a Bollywood star. She knows that she needs money to go to Bombay and struggle in the film industry. One day, Bhanu (Pankaj Tripathi), a cab driver, takes the proposal of a foreigner couple to Mimi. Since the wife, Summer (Evelyn Edwards) can’t bear a child, she and her husband, John (Aidan Whytock), decide to have their child through surrogacy. Summer and John are on the lookout for a healthy girl to bear their child, and they find Mimi as the perfect fit. Bhanu takes their offer to Mimi who, after initial rejection, agrees to become the surrogate mother for a huge sum of money, of course.
All hell breaks loose when the foreigner couple backs out of the deal after a few months of Mimi’s pregnancy, asking her to abort the child. But Mimi refuses to do so. She gives birth to the child and raises the son born to her, as her own. Four years later, the very foundation of her life gets shaken.
Why do Summer and John backtrack from the deal? What happens after four years of the birth of Summer and John’s child?
The film is based on Marathi film Mala Aai Vhhaychy!. It also reminds a great deal of Hindi films Jaanwar and Chori Chori Chupke Chupke. The original story of the Marathi film is written by Samruddhi Porey while the story and the screenplay for this film are penned by Laxman Utekar and Rohan Shankar. The biggest problem with the story and screenplay is that they try to be both, comic and emotional. In the process, they turn out to be neither. Of course, there are some comedy scenes and they even bring a smile to the face but they are very few although it is clear that many more of them have been designed to evoke laughter. Similarly, there are a number of scenes in the post-interval portion, which are meant to draw tears from the eyes or at least make the viewers experience a lump in their throats. However, that doesn’t happen in spite of the fact that the characters cry copiously. This is because the writers have not been able to establish that Mimi’s family has, in the last four years, become emotionally attached to Mimi’s son, Raj. Yes, Mimi’s world seems to be revolving around Raj but what about the other family members? Just showing them playing with the little child occasionally is not the same thing as being emotionally attached to him. Even in Mimi’s case, the emotional bonding is not underlined till the climax. Also, the writers seem to be confused about what emotion they want to capture — in one scene, Mimi’s father is so disgusted with the revelation of the truth behind Raj’s birth that he asks his student to get him a glass of water mixed with poison so that he could drink that and die while Mimi’s mother shows exactly the opposite emotion. Similarly, in the scene in which Mimi is speaking to the IVF doctor in Jaipur, she makes a pertinent point about killing a child after birth as against before birth but what follows thereafter in her remark about making peace with the child while it is in the womb does not seem to have any connection with the first part of the comment. It is scenes like the above that are found lacking and, therefore, the climax does not have the desired impact. In fact, there is too much back and forth in the climax till the final settlement which also looks like a very easy compromise. However, the scenes of Mimi’s realisation are good. Besides, the climax of the drama still remains the best part of the film because of the mother-son angle. Rohan Shankar’s dialogues are effective at places only. They ought to have been loaded with comedy in the light scenes, and with emotions in the dramatic and emotional scenes.
Kriti Sanon does a fine job in the title role. She has looked very beautiful and has done justice to her character. Her dance is graceful. Pankaj Tripathi is, as always, first rate. He is such a spontaneous actor that it is a delight to watch him act. Sai Tamhankar lends very good support as Mimi’s bosom pal, Shama. Manoj Pahwa is quite good as Mimi’s music teacher-father. Supriya Pathak is excellent as Mimi’s mother. Evelyn Edwards, as Summer, is impressive. Aidan Whytock provides able support as John. Jacob Smith (as little Raj) is cute. Atmaja Pandey (as Bhanu’s wife) and Nutan Surya (as Bhanu’s mother) are natural to the core. Sheikh Ishaque Mohammad shines as Aatif, the music student of Mimi’s father. Jaya Bhattacharya is alright as the IVF doctor. Amardeep Jha (as Vasudha mausi), Pankaj Jha (as Dilshad), Narottam Bain (as Farookh Shaikh tailor), Gyan Prakash (as Shama’s father), Anil Bhagwat (as lawyer Bharadwaj), Nadeem Khan (as Jolly) and the others lend good support.
Laxman Utekar’s direction is good but it needed to be more sensitive in the second half. Music (A.R. Rahman) is not upto Rahman’s level and should’ve been better. ‘Param sundari’ is the best number. A couple of other songs have lilting tunes. Amitabh Bhattacharya’s lyrics are weighty. The picturisation of the ‘Param sundari’ song (by Ganesh Acharya) is impactful. The other song’s (‘Rihayee de’) picturisation (Vijay Ganguly) is average. A.R. Rahman’s background music is so-so. Akash Agrawal’s cinematography is quite nice. Production designing (by Subrata Chakraborty and Amit Ray) and art direction (Pallavi Pethkar and Nilesh K. Vishwakarma) are decent. Manish Pradhan’s editing is quite crisp.
On the whole, Mimi is an ordinary fare and will be able to make a place for itself in the hearts of one section of the public, mainly that section which looks for novelty in subject. Had it been released in the cinemas, it would’ve done fair business.
Released on 26-7-’21 on Jio Cinema and Netflix.