Film Review: ‘Mission Mangal’

“Mission Mangal” tells the story of how a small team consisting mainly of mission reached Mars on their first try with the lowest budget in history!

Celebrating the 50^th anniversary of the ISRO (Indian Space Research Organization), “Mission Mangal” takes a somewhat fictional approach to the real events of India’s first satellite launch to Mars.  Starring Akshay Kumar as Rakesh Dhawan and Vidya Balan as Tara Shinde, the film opens in the mission control room for the launch of an ISRO lunar rocket.  While evaluating the metrics before the launch, Tara makes a bad call, giving a go-ahead on the fuel conditions.  Rakesh receives confirmation from all teams and commences the launch.  After a seemingly successful takeoff, the rocket starts to steer off course due to suboptimal fuel conditions.  The rocket blows up and the mission is a failure.  Rakesh, being the director of this mission takes the blame for the failure and is removed from the lunar team and replaced with Rupert Desai (Dalip Tahil), a former director from NASA.  Rakesh is then moved to lead the Mars mission- a seemingly impossible mission for the next 5-10 years- in hopes that he will quietly resign.

Tara, already struggling to juggle taking care of home life and working at ISRO, is devastated by her mistake that cost the mission and Rakesh’s job.  Determined to redeem herself, she comes up with an idea to use an older lunar rocket to get to Mars on a budget of only 8 billion rupees (~$125 million).  She brings the idea to Rakesh who is skeptical at first but then sees the genius in the idea.  They bring the plan to the director of ISRO (Vikram Gokhale) and through a bit of resistance from him and Rupert, get cleared to start.  Rupert, unhappy Rakesh’s plan, tries to sabotage his mission by assigning lower-ranking scientists consisting mainly of women, to the mission.  This small team at first deals with some hurdles as this mission, with its small team, low budget, and tight timeframe is borderline impossible.  But soon, they are inspired to give it their all and really try to aim for beyond the moon.  When their budget is slashed to 4 billion rupees (~$75 million) they carry on to make things lighter, cheaper, and more compact.  Finally, through loads of ingenuity, the satellite is complete and the rocket is ready for launch.  Luck, unfortunately, is not on their side when a hurricane approaches on their launch day.  They have a 9-day buffer to launch and still hit Mars, but as the days pass and the rain continues to fall, their hope dwindles.  That is, until the last day when the rain finally clears and they are able to launch.  Through some minor hiccups along the way, the satellite reaches Mars, making it the first time in history for a country to reach Mars on their first try with this low of a budget.

The movie focuses on a team of 8 scientists, of which 5 of which are women.  All of these characters are fictional characters that are based on the actual scientists and directors on the mission.  The women of this story played a prominent role in not only the mission development but to display empowered women that break the stigma that women and STEM are mutually exclusive.  These “second and third rank” women in ISRO prove themselves to be just as good, if not better than their higher-ranking male counterparts.  The film also displays the problems they face in their personal lives.  From being the caretaker of a family to caring for a battle injured husband, being pressured to have a baby, and facing religious discrimination, it showcases the real problems women in India have to face alongside the pressures of their job.  I particularly liked out Vidya Balan’s character Tara took a more supportive role with her family.  Seeing her character under immense stress from work and still dealing with her family in a graceful way, trusting her kids and letting them find their own paths, was really great.

What’s also inspiring is that this is a true story and that the ISRO was able to pull off a nearly impossible mission to Mars.  The movie gives a sense of the ingenuity and creativity that went into building a cheap, light, and compact satellite.  The scientists had to think way outside of the box in order to make something function with the incredibly tight budget they had.  From using recycled plastics from the ocean to using the solar panels on the satellite as a solar sail to save fuel, the tight restrictions on these scientists brought out their best work.  And while of course some of the dramatizations of the events can get a little cheesy, it’s easy to look past them and enjoy the movie.

Overall, the film was really fun and inspiring.  They managed to mix a lot of tension and drama with comedy and lightheartedness really well, having you on the edge of your seat one moment, and laughing the next.  “Mission Mangal” is playing now in theaters across the country, I highly recommend checking this one out!