There is nothing in a Sriram Raghavan film that doesn’t justify its place eventually. It unfolds itself, slowly and steadily at first and then all at once, catching the slightly less discerning viewer by complete surprise and the one accustomed to Raghavan’s bits, bobs and beats with delightful glee. Nothing in a Sriram Raghavan film comes without the pleasure of discovering and rediscovering, of experiencing a moment of quiet epiphany, of witnessing the ace filmmaker expertly put the pieces together to craft a compelling, rewarding watch. The pleasure of knowing that you have watched a good film from a man who is so much in love with the movies, a master storyteller who rarely missteps.
In his latest film Merry Christmas, pain tiptoes in with pleasure. The dull ache that stays within the deep recesses of the hearts of its two leads — as different from each other as the proverbial chalk is from cheese but bound by a silent, common thread that remains unsaid and yet deeply felt — brings two strangers on Christmas Eve together. It is not the traditional meet-cute — this is a Raghavan thriller after all, and yet a rare film from him tinged with so much romance — and the two travel from a restaurant to the cinema, from her home to his and then back to her home. But what starts as a night with the promise of togetherness for two lonely souls unravels with a Raghavan staple: a dead body. What follows is even more unnerving, but packed with so much intrigue that you invest in it fully, with Merry Christmas throwing in a series of twists and turns. The reward comes in the last 30 minutes, which unfolds in the form of a rollercoaster ride, with the director, and his writing team comprising Arijit Biswas, Pooja Ladha Surti and Anukriti Pandey, unpacking it all step by step. The climax is more experimental than eureka but one which leaves you with both a smile and an ache.
Like his cinema guru Alfred Hitchcock, Sriram Raghavan believes in letting out as little information as he can to the viewer. That Merry Christmas draws its inspiration from the 1962 French noir thriller Le monte-charge is carefully concealed, only showing up in the end credits. Even if you have watched that film, Raghavan’s take is completely his own, transformed not only in terms of its setting.
‘A casual meeting, a night of romance, a horror-filled dawn.’ That’s the rather succinct synopsis of Le monte-charge. That is exactly what takes place in Merry Christmas. The slowest of slow-burns, the 144-minute watch starts with Albert (Vijay Sethupathi) and Maria (Katrina Kaif) finding strange solace in each other’s company.
Set in a time when Mumbai was Bombay, as the film spells out in as many words, there is a vibe of festive cheer in the air. Albert and Maria meet, he escorts her, her daughter and a giant teddy bear home. The two exchange their stories of happy times that quickly turned into sadness, ‘time travel’ quite literally into each others’ joyous moments in the past and almost strike up a romance (‘almost’ is the operative word here). And then, of course, all hell breaks loose. But even at its most chaotic, there is control both in terms of craft and clarity that Raghavan brings to the film. There is no screaming or shouting, no loud moments of exaltation or sadness. Everything unfolds in ways that lead you forward but without any kind of handholding.
Even as Raghavan goes about concealing more than he reveals, the details, the Easter eggs, the references, and the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle all lie in plain sight for you to put together. That this is a story resting on deception is revealed more or less at the outset with Maria and Albert landing up at Regal, the city’s seminal single-screen cinema, screening Pinocchio, the story that centres on a lying protagonist. As Albert steals glances at Maria and her knee-high daughter, the screen lights up with the cheeky warning: ‘Check your (be) longings before leaving the cinema,’ even as jingles of Limca and Liril rend the air.
For Raghavan, the devil lies in the details. The film is set in the 1990s, possibly even in the ’80s. An old-world charm symbolic of Raghavan’s films is deeply felt, brought alive by Madhu Neelakandan’s lens. This is a Bombay where the Christmas spirit is huge and sparkling. Maria’s home, as well as pockets of the city, are dressed up in hues of reds and greens.
Merry Christmas is dedicated to filmmaker Shakti Samanta, who in the ’60s and ’70s, made many a memorable film, including Kati Patang. The Rajesh Khanna-Asha Parekh film centred on deception, but under duress, as is the case in Merry Christmas. The film starts with Asha Parekh’s heart-rending scream in that 1971 film. Early on, as Albert takes out a ticket from a slot machine, a picture of Rajesh Khanna with the words: ‘The night is darkest before dawn’ is pressed into clear view.
Raghavan’s love for all things retro shows up in various ways. The unfolding events remind one of Ittefaq, yet another Rajesh Khanna thriller, where two strangers in a room exchange truth and lies, half-truths and half-lies. That the present fate of the protagonists is tied inexorably to their past is hinted at when Albert picks up the Raymond Chandler novel Playback. A double-decker bus with a poster of The Merry Widow, gesturing towards a key character, races past in a scene. Albert’s neighbour — a garrulous Tinnu Anand — presents him a bottle of homemade wine named Yadhoom, an unmistakable hat-tip to the 2023 thriller Yaadhum Oore Yaavarum Kelir, which also starred Sethupathi.
Merry Christmas has so much to spot and decipher in almost every frame, and not just for movie and music buffs. Albert’s origami skills are a key plot point and possibly a homage to the Professor in Money Heist, a man who falls in love with someone he ideally shouldn’t. The background music is inspired by the pacy beats one finds in Vijay Anand, Nasir Hussain and Raj Khosla’s films, all masters of the thriller genre. Merry Christmas begins with the John Lennon line: ‘So it’s Christmas. What have you done?’ from the Beatles man and his wife Yoko Ono’s Happy Xmas (War Is Over). The central crime in the film hinges on the device of music and Edvard Greig’s In The Hall Of The Mountain King shows up at a vantage point. The final twist is revealed in the quietest way possible, conveying so much by saying so little, with only Vivaldi’s Four Seasons carrying it forward.
These homages and hat-tips ensure that Raghavan’s thrillers, in an anti-thesis of the genre, have tremendous repeat value, compelling one to go back time and again to trace what one may have missed or to relive them once more. And then, of course, are the performances. Vijay Sethupathi, ‘Makkal Selvan’ or ‘People’s Treasure’ to his fans (Merry Christmas acknowledges the same right at the beginning) is the beating heart of the film, finely balancing pain and humour, romance and angst, sometimes all at once. Katrina Kaif, her luminous presence leaping out of the screen, acts as an ideal foil delivering a pitch-perfect act. Together the two are a pleasure to watch and not only when they break into that impromptu dance that spells both cute and impending dread at the same time.
The climax may seem underwhelming for some, but it is the perfect crescendo to the kind of film Merry Christmas is. A silent romance, a silent thriller, a silent film that says so much.
Priyanka Roy
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