Mili Film Review: Janhvi Kapoor Outperforms Herself In This Survival Thriller

'Mili' is a desi version of the survival thriller genre starring Janhvi Kapoor, Sunny Kaushal and Manoj Pahwa. The film follows the story of Mili Naudiyal's attempts to survive against all odds.

New Delhi: 'Mili' is a desi version of the survival thriller genre starring Janhvi Kapoor, Sunny Kaushal and Manoj Pahwa. The film follows the story of Mili Naudiyal (Janhvi Kapoor) stuck in a freezer and her attempts to survive against all odds.

'Mili' begins with an interesting opening sequence complimented with an opening sequence song which shows an ant crawling up and down the belongings of Mili Naudiyal( like the family photo, medicines, IELTS prep papers etc.) in its miniscule attempt to show the story which will eventually ensue in the film. The ant ultimately falls in an ice tray which Mili/Janhvi puts in a freezer resonating the analogy of Janhvi's survival story which is to follow.

As nuanced and well-shot it is ( using montage), the opening sequence is stretchy very much like the subject of the film which is stretched beyond its seams to make a complete feature length film.

The first 30 minutes of the film are all about establishing Mili's character arc. Why she does what she does, what is her behaviour, what is her background etc. And, even though all of this is shot really well complimented by an apt music score, it actually looks like you are literally seeing the prep of the film before it begins to shoot; something like pre-production work on Janhvi's character.

Having said that 'establishing the character' of its titular heroine is important to show what and why happens later in 'Mili' but this could again have been shortened to create a sense of anticipation, mystery, or something to look forward to in the thriller we already know everything about.

Yet, as audiences, you'll find yourselves hooked to the screen thanks to the performance by the leading actor Janhvi Kapoor. 

The father-daughter relationship arc between Manoj Pahwa and Mili is nice and will also remind audiences of her another film 'Gunjan Saxena' in which she had a similar bond with her father, played by the veteran Pankaj Tripathi.

There is this one sequence in the first half, where Mili and her boyfriend Sameer ( played by Sunny Kaushal) on a bike are asked to pull over by the police after Sammer is spotted without a helmet. The tension which is captured to show how a small incident like this can be elevated emotionally to another scale is commendable. In this sequence, rooting the story in a small town like Dehradun really helps amp the tension to a realistic level. The background score of clock ticking, as cliched and simple and the most boring way of accompanying the scene it may be, completely compliments it.

Director Mathukutty Xavier is a master montage-maker with the way he shoots unrelated objects to create a heightened sense of tension in the narrative. Just when Mili is about to get locked up in the freezer, Xavier uses interesting camera angles, close up shots of door knobs, doors closing, punching machine, lights turning off etc. with a suitable tension-heigtenging background score. But, when Janhvi Kapoor is locked inside the freezer, the same sense of tension in camera movements and music disappears and it becomes a predictable, overstretched ordeal where you just want to see the end of the film. After this the sound design becomes completely 90s-Bollywood-dramatic. 

Another thing to note is when Janhvi gets locked up, you expect the title card to appear but even when the film closes for an interval in the most unexpected place, the title card just never happens. A purposeful attempt by the filmmaker to create an experiment with the form which kind of lands.

A notable sequence in the pre-interval film is also of Janhvi hitting a tray against a wall and a child trying to listen to the sound of that outside the restaurant. The coordination of shots, music score to heighten the anticipation with simplicity is noteworthy. Unfortunately, this anticipation fades out in the post-interval film where the pace slacks and the music becomes over-dramatic and dominant.

The second-half also feels prolonged due to a restrictive sense of space where most scenes are of the inside of the freezer. To combat this, the maker uses interlacing shots to keep the narrative interesting and create parallel storylines; one of the survivors inside the freezer and one of Mili's father and her boyfriend looking for her outside in the city. Sunny Kaushal for most part is a good performer though he is underutilized in the film.

As the second half begins with Janhvi's attempt to survive against all odds, the 'Jeena Hai' score begins to play, almost spoiling the entire intent which the first half had managed to honestly portray.

In its emotional tangent, 'Mili' is a survival story which adds to the survival of the fittest theory an element of humaneness in Janhvi Kapoor's attempt to save a small rat along with her as both are stuck in a freezer at a fast food-chain restaurant, 'Doon's Kitchen' in Dehradun. The film also builds on the father-daughter bonding to elevate the emotional syntax of the film.

In the technical tangent, 'Mili' majorly uses montage and music to heighten the emotional tangent. This is done successfully in the first half of 'Mili'. In the second half, the film slacks in all elements.

(Spoilers Alert)

There is also a Jackie Shroff cameo of this mysterious prisoner who helps a policeman send the correct location of Mili's phone's to a senior cop. It's kind of a nice surprise, which placed for whatever reason, only the filmmaker can answer.

There is a crescendo music building sequence which helps in the climax until we see the human spirit to survive and fail, as an overhead shot of Janhvi lies all wrapped up in plastic on the floor of the freezer, and the intensity of the emotion in that scene is well-built.

All that follows later including the small scene where Manoj Pahwa is confused if Janhvi is alive or not feel overstretched.

As the film comes to a close, the title card of the film plays in the end as Mili survives, and as does the ant she had accidentally locked up her house's fridge. This again is a well-intentioned closing move on the part of the filmmaker, and no matter how typical it looks, it works well with the texture of the emotion in the end of the film- All's well that ends well.

Directed by Mathukutty Xavier, 'Mili' is the filmmaker's Hindi remake of his own 2019 Malayalam film titled 'Helen'.