Image Credit: https://www.ragalahari.com/
Miss India
Genre: Telugu Drama
Release Date: 4th November
Netflix Movie Review
Miss India: The Making of a Headstrong Queen’s Vision
Miss India does an enthralling job at kick-starting the entrepreneurial adrenaline rush while emotionally touching your heart, mind and soul. The movie is the culmination of everything that an entrepreneur experiences during the journey of entrepreneurship full of ebb and flow. Miss India, ironically is not a beauty pageant melodrama. It is indeed a tale of Mansa Samyuktha (Keerthy Suresh) who believes that being driven and putting yourself first to accomplish your entrepreneurial goals is not unreasonable. When she is 8 years old, her grandfather (played by Rajendra Prasad), makes her realize the importance of having a goal in life than merely securing good grades. He is a renowned Ayurvedic medicine practitioner and healer who is adored by his patients for preparing proven remedies for varied health ailments.
Inspired by her grandfather, she masters the art of preparing herbal tea using a blend of unique herbs and people cannot stop going gaga about the tea. Indeed, it is her grandfather only who sows the seed of entrepreneurship in her. As the movie begins to gain pace, Mansa begins to experience challenges relating to decision making. When her brother (played by Kamal Kamaraju) secures a job in the US, she is left with no option but to bid adieu to her dreams of taking forward the legacy of her grandfather’s wellness brand. However, despite relocating to the USA, her dream of accomplishing her goals does not die down anytime sooner. She crosses her path with Vijay (Naveen Chandra) but after dating him for some time, she realizes that their future visions do not align and hence she decides to part ways. The moment she becomes vocal about her ambitions, all hell breaks loose in her house, finally compelling her to leave the house in the pursuit of accomplishing her dreams.
The moment, she decides to take complete charge of her life, the process gradually begins to turn rewarding. As she strives to scale her tea business empire empowered by a franchise modal in a foreign land that shares a penchant for coffee while showing a lukewarm response towards tea, she begins to encounter troubles, one after another. Right from disapprovals to rejections, from sexual remarks to unimaginable rivalry, her first setback comes in the form of rejection from none other than the coffee conglomerate tycoon KSK (JagapathiBabu). Nevertheless, once she begins to pay heed to her intuition, everything else begins to come across as a sheer tenacity and she begins to grasp that fears are nothing but just paper tigers. Keerthy Suresh as a protagonist lives up to the expectations of her role. Her “Image Makeover” is truly one of the most delightful offerings of this movie. Jagapathi Babu does justice with his negative role.
Undeniably, there is an array of flaws in this movie. There is no denial of the fact that the scriptwriting could have had been crisper and so is editing. In a few scenes, melodrama begins to tighten its grip only to dilute the main essence of the movie. The foreign cast could have had been more sophisticated. Dialogues are ordinary except a few extraordinary ones including “Giving for the sake of giving is Charity but sharing because we have enough is Humanity”. Even the climax seems abrupt. Nevertheless, the flawless acting of Keerthy Suresh proves to be the biggest saving grace. Miss India comes across as a contemporary crusader for women empowerment and equal rights.
Women have been told to live life by a certain mould and Miss India delivers a powerful message to break that mould. It comes across as a very relatable movie in the context of pursuing entrepreneurial dreams. After all, rise and fall, success and failure are two such contradictory sides of the coin that co-exist together in the life of an entrepreneur. This story is a tribute of believing on own intuitions, guts and dreams.
It puts forward the very strong message that it is natural to fail but one must not give up perseverance and self-confidence. Each one of us is gifted with a unique ability and talent and the same must be attained, despite hurdles. This movie puts yet another powerful message that strong women neither play victim nor look pitiful. They stand and deal with every challenge while refusing to pursue a common path just for the sake of experiencing belongingness. Verdict Watch this chai-coffee standoff, keeping in mind one of the most-sought after Zen philosophies “Wabi-Sabi” emphasizing perceiving beauty in the imperfection, to appreciate its spirit oozing authenticity. You will not be able to resist falling in awe of the spirit of this movie. The innocence of positive characters including, her father (Played by Sivaramakrishna), the gutsy endeavour to put forward an inspiring tale of women empowerment, unapologetic aspirations, there is truly something mesmerizing about this candid movie.
Would you like to share how Miss India impacted your thoughts or would you like to share about any other movie that further fueled your dreams and aspirations?
