Article by: Shalini Deb Roy, The North-Eastern Chronicle
Visual by: Pallab Neog
The term ‘ surrogacy’ refers to action or state of being a surrogate. Surrogacy is a method of assisted reproduction where intended parents work with a gestational surrogate who will carry and care for their baby(ies) until birth. And usually, the intended parents use this process to start or grow their families when they can’t do so on their own.
Kriti Sanon-Pankaj Tripathi Starrer, “Mimi”(2021) is a light-hearted movie but with a strong message on surrogacy, directed by Laxman Utekar. The movie is an official remake of the Marathi movie “Mala Aai Vhhaychy”.
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Plot on how the protagonist exquisitely explores an emotional fight with oneself, society and dreams
This movie tells the story of a girl, Mimi Maansingh Rathore from Jaipur who aspires to become a top heroine in Bollywood industry. 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 couples 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 fulfil 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. 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.
This brings in an abundance of problems for Mimi who refuses to abort the child and decides to give birth to the baby. In the film’s climax, Mimi finally gives birth to an unusually fair baby who happens to catch the attention of all of the people residing in city. The makers tried to beautifully showcase the centrality of motherhood in a woman’s life. It also shows how Mimi went rebellious with her move of taking up surrogacy and facing the orthodox society in a small town of Rajasthan. The film is a blend of emotions and laughter doses.
Beside surrogacy, the film portrays the idea of ‘adoption’ and it’s importance
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. Therefore, it cleverly steers people to adoption, as it shares the beautiful idea of parenthood that one doesn’t need to give birth to a child in order to become parents.
As as stated at the end, that population would nearly rank 9th in the world, if orphans were a country on their own. Moreover, almost 153 million children are in need of loving and stable home with their parents.
This is an unique concept which allows couples as well as single adults to share their life with a child and enjoy the experience of parenthood. It builds rewarding, meaningful relationships between adoptive families and birth parents.
“Mimi” overall is a complete entertainer and will give you a roller-coaster ride full of emotions and laughter. The story is engaging, compassionate, and empowering, and sends out a strong message.
Though the viewers can have different perspectives regarding the movie, but there’s no denying the impact that this film can have on them, regardless of what kinds of families they belong to.
The director Laxman Utekar does a brilliant job in explaining the plot, the important events and further evokes laughter in a serious situation.
