Mee Raqsam Movie Review: In Persian, 'Mee Raqsam' means 'I dance'. Dance, as you know, is an art form, and like with any other form, it doesn't have any boundaries of region and religion. Even if the dance form is Bharatanatyam, often perceived as a Hindu classical dance, and the performer is Maryam (Aditi Subedi), a young Muslim girl from Mijwan, Azamgarh. Mee Raqsam is a story of this gutsy girl and her liberal-minded, supportive father who brave shackles of religious conservatism to get her dreams fulfilled. OTT Releases Of The Week: Bobby Deol's Class Of '83, Jurnee Smollett's Lovecraft Country, Swara Bhasker's Flesh and More New Content To Binge-Watch!

Interestingly, Mee Raqsam comes a couple of weeks after Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl, another film about a father encouraging his daughter to sprout wings and fly. However, unlike the Saxenas in the Dharma film, Maryam and her widower father Salim (Danish Husain) face severe ostracisation for even thinking so.

Maryam was inspired by her dead mother, a naturally-talented dancer who picked up the Bharatnatyam moves by watching them on television. When Salim sees that the dance-form is making his daughter come out of the grief of her mother's demise, he encourages her to pursue it by enrolling her in a nearby dance class.

Watch the Trailer of Mee Raqsam:

Scripted by Husain and Safdar Mir, Mee Raqsam also bears similarity to another underdog tale, Iqbal. If the young protagonist in the Nagesh Kukunoor's film faced stiff opposition from his stubborn father, in Mee Raqsam, it is her relatives and some of her community heads that are pig-headed.

If Naseeruddin Shah was the one who helped in fulfilling Iqbal's dream as his coach, in Mee Raqsam, he goes the other way as the community leader Hashim Seth, looking for devious ways to break down Salim's resolve. Dance is looked down upon most of them, seeing it as a courtesan's profession, and the fact that it is Bharatanatyam, makes their derision even worse.

Under Hashim's orders, the rest of the community in the town keep their distance from Salim, making him lose their daily livelihood. This only makes their determination strong. As Salim put it across Maryam, it is never about dance. It is about living your life on your own terms.

Mee Raqsam is directed by Baba Azmi and backed by his actress sister, the multiple National Award-winner Shabana Azmi. The Azmis' creative involvement is a sweet touch, since like Maryam, even they have overcome the stringent guidelines of the religion to pursue creative arts.

There is no doubt about the sincerity in the purpose of its making. On one hand, it questions religious diktats that prevent people from chasing their dreams. On the other hand, the movie als shows arts has the power to transcend all barriers, human-made. The climax makes the message even clearer, with a dancer performance that merges classical beats to Sufi music.

Aditi Subedi is very impressive as the young protagonist, also pretty graceful in the Bharatnatyam scenes. As her father, Danish Hussain, stiff at times, is likeable enough in an equally likeable character.

Beyond the sincerity of the film's intentions and the performances of the leads, Mee Raqsam gets a few moves awry with its soap opera-sque treatment and cliched portrayal of the supporting characters. Nearly every character, apart from Maryam and Salim, come off as irksome caricatures, and that goes for both communities. On the other side, we have a Hindu politician (Rakesh Chaturvedi Om) who wonders how a Mohammedan girl is such a pro in an 'Indian' dance-form and annoyingly keeps calling her 'Sultana'.

It isn't that these characters don't exist in real life, but Mee Raqsam's use of them as paper-thin obstacles than 3-D flesh-and-blood humans is a disappointment. Most of them aren't written with much thought apart from how cynical they should look on screen.

Shah's Hashim Seth may be purported as the antagonist, but he is nowhere in action in the climax, where the villain duties goes to the politician. Bandish Bandits Season 1 Review: Ritwik Bhowmik, Shreya Chaudhry’s Musical Saga Gets Its Tune Right With Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy’s Brilliant Soundtrack and Amazing Supporting Cast.

Shradha Kaul and the veteran Farukh Jafar, who play Maryam's domineering aunt and her hard-to-heard grandma respectively, are wasted in their cardboard characters. If the melodramatic treatment had been toned down and the writing was better, this could have been another memorable tale of an underdog fighting religious barriers to come on top.

Yay!

- Aditi Subedi

- The Heart-Warming Father-Daughter Scenes

Nay!

- A Weak Script That Lacks Solid Writing

Final Thoughts

Mee Raqsam has a heart and an impressive lead in Aditi Subedi. Unfortunately, it offers a very uneven stage for her to perform the dance of devotion and divinity. Mee Raqsam is streaming on Zee5.

Rating:2.5

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Aug 21, 2020 06:56 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).