Shimla Mirchi’s Trailer Is About A Middle-Aged Woman Owning Her Sexuality. Are We Finally Opening Up To The Idea Of Older Women’s Libidos?

When it comes to movies, I am very picky. It takes me hours to pick a movie to watch, which is why I prefer shows. I like my movies like I like my books, it needs to leave me with something. A message that I can ponder over on my way home, genuinely good comedy that I can laugh at the next day or even a good song that turns into an earworm. There are a few actors whose movies constitute of all three and those are the movies I really look forward to.

The whole reason I am telling you what kind of movies I watch is that I just stumbled upon the trailer for Rajkumar Rao, Rakul Preet Singh and Hema Malini’s Shimla Mirchi. For the first minute of the trailer I wasn’t that interested, it looked like a love story with confusion and let’s face it Bollywood has done that to death. But then around the second minute, something very interesting happened that intrigued me. Don’t get me wrong, it is a love story with a mix-up. But the mix-up is what caught my fancy.

From what I gathered from the two and half minute trailer, the movie is about a man named Avi (Rajkumar Rao) who wants to find love but can barely speak to women. He falls in love when he sees Naina (Rakul Preet Singh) running past him dressed in what seems like a wedding dress. You know, as brides generally do in movies. He tries very hard to speak to her but can’t muster enough courage when a friend of his recommends that he write Naina a love letter instead. So, he does that and drops off the letter, which reaches Naina’s single mother (Hema Malini). The plot thickens when the mother thinks Avi is in love with her and begins overtly flirting with him. Obviously, we don’t know what happens in the end, does he manage to break Naina’s mothers’ heart or does he fall in love with her too?

Also Read: Neena Gupta Says She May Not Even Be Alive By The Time Older Women Get Lead Roles In Bollywood. We Agree, This Isn’t Happening Soon

The Shimla Mirchi trailer reminded me a little of one of Ayshmann Khurana’s movies, Badhaai Ho. It was a brilliant movie that talks about women and their sexuality in an age where they are often shuttled to temples or simply nudged into being more religious. Shimla Mirchi has a very similar undertone. Hema Malini who plays the role of a mother who is lonely and needs companionship. Unlike most mothers at that age, she does not shy away from discovering her sexuality once again. She is encouraged by her daughter to pursue Rajkumar Rao’s character whom she falls in love with. Actually, it does not matter how the story ends. What is important is the subtle beauty with which a middle-aged woman’s sexuality is explored.

Usually when women reach the age of 50-60 they start focusing on their getting their children settled, start going to the temple, watching sappy TV serials etc etc. This is how women of that age are portrayed in cinema as well. The hapless mother, often a tortured soul, with nothing to do but dote on her children. We’re glad that that narrative is changing. And now the woman has more to do than stand around as things happen around her. But more importantly, we are exploring the mother’s sexuality – something we are unwilling to even discuss. Perhaps one of the first movies to nudge us in this direction was Lipstick Under My Burkha where an older woman enjoys a deeply sexual relationship, which was entirely conducted on the phone. Of course, she was shamed for it after but hey, it was a start. In Shimla Mirchi, Hema Malini’s character shows us there is nothing to be ashamed of if you fall in love after you have grown up children yourself, it is part of self-discovery.

Also Read: Rakul Preet Singh Says Content Is Important, Not The Age Of Her Co-Stars. She Does Have A Point!

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This romantic-comedy has been directed by Ramesh Sippy and will hit theatres on 3rd January, 2020. I can’t wait to watch this one.

Does this mean we can finally accept the truth?

https://thehauterfly.com/relationships/out-of-wedlock-pregnancies-single-motherhood-are-we-finally-okay-with-these-or-is-it-limited-to-bollywood/