In a tiny Rajasthani town called Shekhavati lives a beautiful dancer named Mimi (Kriti Sanon). She dances like a mermaid and talks to cutouts of Bollywood starlets in her kitschy bedroom. She also harbours dreams of dethroning them one day. However, like Vimmi from Bunty Aur Babli, marriage proposals do not threaten to clip her wings. Mimi’s parents don’t have much of a say in her life, much like Meghna from Fashion. She performs smashing dances, bonds deeply with her bestie Shama (Sai Tamhankar), frequently chats with a suspicious-sounding Jolly on the phone, and, bam, one fine day, decides to fund her Mumbai dreams through an unlikely shortcut: by becoming a surrogate for a childless foreign couple.
Director Laxman Utekar’s Mimi is one of those rare films I finished watching for its story. It isn’t exactly suspenseful, but it explores a series of questionable universal practices in a fairly engaging manner. Right in the opening scene, a definitive problem statement is made by the couple, and the solution provider turns out to be a driver from New Delhi, Bhanu (Pankaj Tripathi). Minutes later, Mimi performs an elaborate, Bollywood-style Param Sundari dance number in a hotel-like setting, and the couple makes up their mind. They want the lissome, athletic girl to carry their baby.
Utekar develops this curious trajectory with a string of borderline slapstick routines, and Mimi agrees to the offer for over two million rupees. Her only concern? Whether her figure would go kaput. The doctor (Jaya Bhattacharya) has a cheeky comeback: “Did Shilpa Shetty lose her figure?” Whatever. Mimi is pregnant, and everyone’s thrilled. So are we.
The comedy of errors continues, and the film’s local flavour takes even better shape. Utekar gives us a handful of smile-worthy sequences that work despite the cultural typecasts sprinkled in for effect. We get a couple of fabulous songs and a fancier original score (both credited to Rahman). The dialogues and character design (though not very nuanced) are smart, original, and quirky. Then comes the big twist: the parents of Mimi’s soon-to-be-born child back out of their contract. The film loses a good chunk of its charm at this juncture. From street-smart to soppy, the shift is drastic – and I felt the bite. In true Bollywood style, Mimi breaks down in the middle of the town, unintentionally trampling both my mood and expectations.
From this point on, Utekar’s film slowly turns into endless drivel. Mimi’s parents (Manoj Pahwa and Supriya Pathak) give us mixed signals, and we are left wondering whether they are funny, sarcastic, or simply worried about their daughter’s plight. Half of the blame must be attributed to the local dialect, which mixes unconvincingly with the actors’ popular screen personas (they’re known for iconic comedic roles on Indian television). The film crawls to an utterly tame climax, expecting you to shed gallons of tears. While the climactic message might appeal to the masses, Mimi misses the mark with its hopelessly simplistic take on parenting.
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It was also amusing how Bhanu, who was the mainstay for 70% of the film’s runtime, slowly turns into a non-entity. The writers (Laxman Utekar, Rohan Shanka), after a point, seem clueless about what to do with him. They try to insert his family into the picture, but with lacklustre results. Bhanu, as a benevolent support system, doesn’t convince either, despite Tripathi putting in unimaginable effort to make it work.
The brightest spot, predictably, is Sanon, who is a delight to watch. Her accent might be slightly inconsistent, but her energy and enthusiasm are not. You can watch the otherwise heavily urbanised actor transform into an agile small-town dancer. After a point, I didn’t bother how sketchy her Bollywood dreams were on paper—it was fun watching Mimi scheme her way to squash the leading divas of showbiz.
By the time the film reaches its finale – wading through an excruciatingly long runtime (or at least it feels that way) – Mimi remains an interesting entity. But her ambitions (or lack thereof), family, friends, and other elements do not. The least I expected from Laxman Utekar’s film was a bunch of fresh perspectives on surrogacy from a non-urban lens. Fleeting lines such as “You are Devaki, you are Yashoda – how come you aren’t the mother still?” do make us think. Yet, they are not enough to sustain excitement in an old-fashioned melodrama masquerading as an ordinary dancing girl’s bold coming-of-age.
Rating: ★★ 1/2
Mimi premiered on Netflix.
