Review of Mississippi Masala, directed by Mira Nair

Having run this blog for about two and a half years now, if there’s something about reflecting on movies, television, and books that I’ve learned, it’s that there are so many things I’ve been intending to get to throughout the years and have just never got to. There are so many movies lately that I’m thinking and writing about that I keep saying, “Man, I wish I got to this earlier!”

I’ve written about Mira Nair’s other works before, but Mississippi Masala is one of those movies I always kept saying I wanted to see.The premise of the movie is what really drew me in—a nineties romance between people from completely different racial groups, as well as the female lead’s father grappling with his trauma of leaving Uganda behind, was fascinating.

So when I was wandering my library one day, I spotted a copy of the movie in the DVD section, and decided it was finally time to check it out and see it for the first time. I popped it in when I had some light work to do, and ended up not doing any of the work because of how riveted I was with the movie.

Let’s get into this review, shall we?

An Indian American girl and Black boy fall in love after getting into an accident in Mississippi.

The film begins in the past, because to understand the present day, you need to know how some of the characters ended up where they are today.

It opens in 1972, in Uganda, when the dictator of the country, Idi Amin, decided to kick out all of the Asians from Uganda in an effort to make it a more pan-African and Black nation. One of the families impacted are Jay and Kinnu, who were born and raised in Uganda, and had their daughter Mina there.

Forced to leave behind everything they ever knew, they go to England, then Mississippi. In MI, they have family members who run a chain of motels, so they’re allowed to stay in one of the motel rooms as they try to settle and get their lives back together after being forcibly expelled from their home.

But as a result of the expulsion, it left Jay, the father, deeply mistrustful of Black people, as he had fond memories of living in the country and truly loved it there.

He dreams of going back, and sees their lives in America as temporary. But his daughter, Mina, has become more American in the process. She went to school and has friends from all different kinds of backgrounds, but her parents want her to stay within their close knit Indian community within the area. As she drives home with her mother one day, she rear ends a car, which is how she meets Demetrius.

He’s a local Black boy who works as a carpet cleaner, and she falls in love with him as they continue to meet up in the days following the original accident.

Mina knows that her community would hate what she’s doing right now, so they have to keep their dates and encounters with each other a secret. Her father especially would blow his top if he knew what was going on in his daughter’s love life.

The two of them decide to go to Biloxi for a getaway, but when they’re in Biloxi, someone from the Indian community spots them together, and Mina’s parents find out. The rumors start spreading throughout the community members, and her father tells her she can never see Demetrius again.

At the same time, Demetrius’ Black community chastises him for the relationship, leading to friction from both sides.

But because these two are young lovers, nothing is going to stop them. Demetrius confronts Jay about what was happening and his racism, and Jay doubles down by talking about his discrimination experiences.

Demetrius then calls him out for being a hypocrite because he teaches Black people the same way, but because their families ultimately cannot come to terms with what’s happening, they run away together from the state.

Jay is invited back to Uganda for the court hearing, involving his land and home, but when he arrives to the country, he sees how everything has moved on without him. It’s no longer the Uganda of his childhood, and he decides that he no longer wants to live there. He returns to the States and decides he is going to make that his home now.

Overall Thoughts

I thought that Mississippi Masala was such an interesting movie, especially considering an Indian American woman directed this during the nineties.

A movie that depicts a Black and Indian relationship during this period is an anomaly, especially considering the acclaim the movie received when it was originally released even. This is a form of representation that simply wasn’t happening, even if this wasn’t a peak mainstream movie.

Regardless, the backstory involving the father was also interesting to me as well. This is a history I knew nothing about, and I think that I walked away from this movie feeling that I wanted to learn more about the expulsion of Asians from Uganda, as well as more about migration to the region as well.

Anyways, if you haven’t seen this movie, I think that you should definitely check it out!

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