Mili Review: Survival drama worth a watch

Given the disappointing footfalls in mainstream Bollywood cinema, this week is not even perceived as sleeper hit?

Hyderabad: What happens when Rich Dad Boney Kapoor gets daughter Janhvi Kapoor to play Helen, is the Milicuriosity factor for Bollywood followers this Friday. Given the disappointing footfalls in mainstream Bollywood cinema, this week is not even perceived as sleeper hit?

Mathukutty Xavier revisits his award winning 2019 film Helen. The fact therefore staring at you at the very threshold is that this is not an innovative exercise. Even the title is a borrow from Hrishikesh Mukherjee who revisited Anand with a gender change Mili starring Jaya with Amitabh.

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This is a survival thriller. Xavier again has a way with self-belief that you can have today’s viewer engaged for 150 minutes with a space restricted survival thriller. Why are our film makers refusing to read the writing on the wall? Cinematic illiteracy of narcissist indulgence of the money bags?

The tale is about Mili (Janhvi Kapoor) trapped in a cold freezer room at the back end of a fast food centre. Over then to Dehradun where pappa Sr. Naudiyal (ManojPahwa) is off to Canada leaving behind daughter Mili and boy friend Sameer (Sunny Kaushal).

Mili is busy playing Matron Mamma to indulgent pappa and tries keeping a deluded look at his medical requirements while she is getting ready to go to Canada. In love with Sameer, you would believe that this film is about a love story of middle-class dutiful girl who is working at a fast-food centre.

This designer survival thriller labours for about half hour into the film dealing with a cigarette stuck dad and his doting daughter Mili, till she gets trapped at the centre headed by boss Sudhir (Kochhar). Things get further contrived with local police (Anurag Arora) playing moral cop. You almost want to message Xavier and wonder if he has lost the script or direction.

Trapped for a night at -12.5 degrees the film gets into its genre after expending too much with the irrelevant. A worried dad-a trapped daughter- a world blissfully unaware is the crisis point at halftime.

Now the challenges of survival get graphic, from -12 to -16 degrees centigrade, numb fingers, hurt skin, breathing challenges and Mili. As the girl fights for survival and the family finds a bottleneck with the police, light and hope comes in the form of Ravinder (Sanjay Suri).
A measured performance from the ever reliable Manoj Pahwa and an interesting performance from Sunny Kaushal add credibility to the film. There is also an interesting essay from Anurag Arora as the unfriendly cop.

Central to the film is and ought to be Jahnvi. She sure tries and the character notwithstanding, there is more star than ‘actor’ in the role. That in a way is the undoing of the film. Perhaps Tapsee or Kangana would have the film riveting compulsively around Mili.

A thriller worth a watch notwithstanding the long purposeless route and the predictable climax with template characters. Like the central character the film fights a survival challenge. Yet worth a watch-even better if you are late making it to the theater.