In Mili, starring Janhvi Kapoor, director Mathukutty Xavier who won the National Award for Best Debut Film for Helen repeats himself almost exactly. Including the memorable title sequence which foreshadows the events that will unfold.
Mili, Plot, and Logic
Milly is a survival drama about a driven hard-working middle-class girl in Dehradun who one night finds herself trapped in the freezer of the fast food restaurant she works in everyone else has left her boss has locked the main door and the mall is shutting down meanwhile Millie wearing her shirt and trousers uniform is locked into Sub-Zero temperatures. soon her ears get red her nose starts bleeding she realizes that she is now fighting for her life in Helen. Matukutti and his co-writers Alfred Korean Joseph and Noble Babu Thomas took a news report about a woman trapped in an industrial freezer after her shift ended and created a suspenseful moving film that takes us through the wringer.
Helen also pays attention to chauvinism and double standards that young working women in India face routinely importantly the film champions religious tolerance. Helen is a Christian her boyfriend Azar is Muslim the friction this relationship creates is also what causes her to end up half-dead in that ice box. For Hindi audiences, Mata Koti avoids this contentious terrain the difference between Millie and her boyfriend. Samir is changed to the caste rather than the religion in the original make of remake.
Original Vs Remakes
After watching Millie I grappled with the same question I had after watching Vikram Veda. Why are talented directors from the south remaking their own films in Hindi? Why are they recreating their work almost frame by frame what is the creative satisfaction in this exercise?
At least in Vikram Veda, Hrithik Roshan provided a new point of entry for the character of Veda. His interpretation was wholly different from what Vijay Sethupathi did. Matukutta Xavier won the national award for best debut film for Helen. For more insights on the movie stay posted for the second part of the review, where the verdict follows.
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