Katrina is Maria, a young mother with a secret. Sethupathi is Albert, a man who has returned to Mumbai after 7 years, also hiding something. These two meet on Christmas Eve at a restaurant in South Mumbai, when the city is ablaze with festive lights; at first they protect their respective secrets more fiercely than those that come after until their stony hearts are shattered and confessions warp and spawn new mysteries.
The title Merry Christmas could be asking us what makes someone truly happy. What would you consider merry-making and how much effort would you put into achieving it? Will you save yourself when no Santa shows up with joy at midnight or will you have a happy Christmas anyway?
Again mild spoilers here I can’t stress this enough. Who dies and who kills obviously won’t be mentioned here but if you’re one for picking up hints then don’t watch. Or watch.
“Kaid mein bulbul” motif runs through the film. Maria is stuck in an unhappy marriage probably an abusive one too but she can’t leave because of her kid. Every time she goes up or down the building’s lifts cast cage like shadows on her face. A bird in cage Christmas ornament makes its presence felt somehow or another And everything happens over one night within tight time frames which contributes to claustrophobia even further. Albert on the other hand has been set free after many years and when their paths cross like osmosis locked-in spaces start expanding outwards while Maria sees an escape route, new life opens around albert closes back again only he doesn’t know this.
But before we come to Katrina & Sethupati let’s talk about story setting. The screenplay of the film is adapted by four different writers from Frédéric Dard’s French novel Le Monte-charge. I’ve not read book so I’m unaware how true-to/far-from-source-material this movie might be. But I had seen the French cinematic adaptation of the book from 1962 AFTER watching Merry Christmas and looking at similarities between those two films I would take a guess that Sriram Raghavan’s work is really close to Dard’s original story. This made me wonder if it was just set in an Indian context because there are Alberts Marias Rosies Annies within Christian communities here. Also by taking these French characters of 60’s & plonking them into “mumbai when it was called Bombay” without adding much more modern-day context nuance or commentary are we perhaps with out intention Othering the Christian population on the western coast of india painting them as a drunk philandering morally grey segment.
French film is known as Paris Pick-up in English. But beware, Abhi, watching that MIGHT cloud your judgment of Merry Christmas Kyunki everything about that movie is same as this one. And better.
Paris Pick-up addressed all the small annoyances I had with Merry Christmas. One such example is when Maria and Albert come together to break some things in a building in the middle of the night. All I could think was can’t the neighbors hear anything in crowded Bombay? In Paris Pick-up set in the 60s, this noise is recognized by shooting some scenes that indicate how loud everything is, how sound travels through space of an empty building and why nobody hears it if you watch and see yourself.
Merry Christmas is very stylish. Almost every scene sits on top of Daniel B George’s background score which technically pays homage to 60s Hindi cinema that perfected camp murder mystery – Teesri Manzil, Jewel Thief, Hamraz inspired by visual styles of a Hitchcock film and literal twists from Sherlock Holmes novel. It’s really nice to hear Sriram Raghavan and editor slash co-writer Pooja Ladha Surti’s “Something is afoot” music-moment collide with your ears you can almost see a graceful acrobatic tiny framed thief jumping from scene to sniggering itself finger on lips more disappointing as film stomps heavily where also needs be light footed i.e. opulent richness set most action happens, Maria’s apartment. The exquisite beauty of Mayur Sharma’s production design work weighs too much so distracts from people in front.
Albert (Vijay Sethupathi) plays perfectly understated character he returns after many years pinocchio honest story even lies have noble intentions behind them such as telling maria ‘ill have anything fermented except dosa batter’ funny way katrina kaif acts herself maybe because she didn’t want be mom figure not motherly attention wanders off child often Also at par with her role in Zero
The movie finishes at a police station where all the characters converge in one place, their stories and alibis overlapping. Vinay Pathak plays a cop who looks totally confused like he’s caricaturing a detective from an Agatha Christie novel, with Pratima Kannan as his subordinate who’d rather be anywhere else but here so she’s trying to close all loose ends quickly. The police officers are funny without becoming cartoons; when Vinay Pathak walks off for a “thinking break” it’s Tiku Talsania Aamir and Salman in Andaz Apna Apna hilarious, and when he gets closer to the truth within seconds it’s Pran and Amitabh Bachchan in Zanjeer intense. The shifts of tone are masterful; they do what Dunki was trying to do well.
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