Review | 'Mimi': Trading misinformation for cheap laughs

Kriti Sanon in 'Mimi', on Netflix. The film was originally supposed to release on July 30, but started streaming from July 26. 2021. (Image: screen grab)

Remember the movie where a fertility clinic mixes up sperm because the last names of the donors are similar? Got so many laughs!

Remember the movie where a young couple from a small town ‘try’ a ‘live-in’ relationship? People fell off their seats laughing!

Bollywood will have a monkey slap you to get laughs. So when I watched Mimi (released earlier because it happens to be the heroine’s birthday) on Netflix, I tried to figure out why it was listed as ‘quirky’.

When you translate that to Bollywood speak, it means ‘hatke comedy’.

Also read: Pankaj Tripathi: "You will see a new Pankaj Tripathi in 'Mimi’"

The film, to put it simply, is about an American couple looking for a surrogate to carry their baby. They find one in Mimi (Kriti Sanon). But there are twist and several wrong turns. Misinformation grows in tandem with a pregnant Mimi's belly - an ultrasound to check for Down Syndrome seems to have been done too late in the pregnancy.

But that's just as far as the plot goes. Let me ask you if this made you laugh:

--Surrogate supplier Manoj Dubey is sleazy, says he will send you photos of new girls on WhatsApp. Eyebrows wiggling suggestively.

--Surprise when the cabbie learns that the ‘white American tourist’ understands Hindi. Until then, he is confused as to why, if the man doesn’t want another woman, does the wife want a woman? He even calls the couple progressive. ‘Yahaan ek sambhalti nahi, inko doosri chaahiye!’  (Now, where have we heard that line before?)

--That a woman (called amma in the film) is considered healthy because she can run and climb a tree.

--After saying that Indians will take loans to give their child an education, the driver suddenly makes a ‘deal’ with the couple because money speaks…

--The American couple sees a dancer - tall, beautiful and healthy - and they want her to be their surrogate. The hand gestures that their driver makes to show ‘shapely’ womanly shape is accompanied by a laugh…

--And the heroine laughs at the driver’s attempt to draw attention to motherly virtues by singing along to a song in the car late at night…

--So cute and funny that she talks to a photo of Ranveer Singh and even the other heroines because once she gets to Bollywood, she’s going to destroy them…

--Even cuter when she’s been bribing the panditji at a temple for entry into Bollywood and he’s been asking the Gods to bless her with a husband and a child.

--When the driver breathes out on his hand because she keeps accusing him of being drunk.

--The American couple meeting the two girls and the driver, where the girls discover the American woman understands Hindi because they’ve been saying, ‘He’s hot, so you could sleep with him…’

--‘Do I get paid double if I have twins? Triple with triplets?’

I am not a killjoy, but if sperms get mixed up at an IVF clinic in real life, the doctor gets in a world of trouble. There is no ‘Bhabiji is having my baby so eat ghee ke ladoos' movie for laughs at all.

We live for the movies. Heck, most of us learnt the facts of life from the movies. And they were not all correct. For every two flowers quivering, trains going through tunnels, we learnt that girls got pregnant if a boy kissed her, we learnt that if the girl had ‘mastana’ roop, and the lad was ‘deewana’ in pyaar, and they were at a campfire, that could be ‘bhool koi humse na ho jaaye!’ We still sing that Rajesh Khanna song without a second thought. We even watched Marathi cinema that had a lesson in rape prevention by telling women to be home by seven (Saatchya Aat Gharat).

These bits of information are insidious and we hold them to be true for years. I would classify this Bollywood gyan as similar to Facebook providing misinformation about Covid-19 vaccines.

So what is the misinformation about this new Pankaj Tripathi, Kriti Sanon movie Mimi?

--One. Surrogacy in India can be dodgy. Women from villages are duped by agents and they live in pitiful conditions. Death is always a possibility. Sure go ahead, keep it lighthearted. Just like they did with honour killing in a silly movie called 14 phere.

--Two. Indians come across as avaricious. They’ll do anything for money. That includes Pankaj Tripathi (who plays Bhanu Pratap, the driver) who gets Rs 5 lakh for helping the American couple find a surrogate. The heroine (Kriti Sanon, with the dodgiest Rajasthani accent) has Bollywood dreams, but asks about ‘does pregnancy ruin figure’ at the clinic, money comes first. Each time they talk about getting money instalments both the girl and the driver laugh as if they were Sukhi lala from Mother India. Not funny at all.

--Three. Indian films have always depicted foreigners as people who throw money at the natives. And this film too does that. The anguish of a childless couple be damned. This is a quirky comedy.

But let’s get serious. Down Syndrome tests are conducted at 10-13 weeks of pregnancy, and are 100% accurate (1% chance at pregnancy failing). At 10 weeks of pregnancy, the foetus is the size of a strawberry. The woman can barely feel her size change. Why do they show that the tests are conducted when the ultrasound shows that the baby is kicking with the stomach protruding? Why would a doctor at the government hospital say that the tests are sometimes wrong? Why would a doctor of a fancy fertility clinic conduct the test so late? ‘Baccha gira do’ is such weird advice when the heroine looks way far gone from safe abortion time?

Sure the movie is based on the 2010 Marathi Movie ‘Mala Aai Vhaychay’ but seriously, nobody thought of fact checking the story?

Don’t even get me started on how easily foreigners get to adopt children. Just wrong.

And asking, 'How did you have such a "fair" baby?’, ‘What did you eat to produce a "gora baccha", ‘Didi must have cheated the driver and had another man’ (coming from a child) is hugely cringeworthy, not funny.

How the family falls in love with the baby and how the two girls (Sai Tamhnekar and Kriti Sanon) bond as friends is very well done. But such a waste of talent to have Manoj Pahwa and Supriya Pathak! I am horrified to see my favourite actor Pankaj Tripathi ham it to the gills.

I am in the minority because I expect more from movies than just misinformation. And it rankles that when everywhere in the world, women’s reproductive rights are being regulated by men, we have a speech in the movie that pushes the pro-life agenda more than anything else.

Give me romantic tales like Pretty Woman, where a rich businessman falls in love with a street walker, give me revenge shows like Ashin Of The North. And I will willingly sign up for zombie acting classes. But don’t spread misinformation, Bollywood. It sticks inside people’s heads, and when our country learns from Whatsapp University, movies like Mimi should come with an additional label: fantasy.