Prior to 2024, Bollywood Christmas movies were hard to find, with interested parties forced to make do with “Christmas-y” Bollywood fare like KAL HO NAA HO (2003) and ANJAANA ANJAANI (2010). MERRY CHRISTMAS, released in 2024, is a Hindi-Telugu language film (making it a Bollywood-Tollywood co-production) that opened the Indian Christmas movie floodgates, for better or worse.
MERRY CHRISTMAS (2024) Trailer
Christmas in India has its own unique rituals and traditions (such as Christmas Eve fireworks and noodle-based cuisine), many of which are on display in MERRY CHRISTMAS. Adapted from a novel by the French thriller specialist Frederic Dard, the film’s depiction of the holiday follows a more western-centric model (down to the classical compositions by Edvard Grieg and Antonio Vivaldi that pepper the soundtrack). It’s very much a product of the slick new school aesthetic that’s overtaken Indian cinema, with the traditional music numbers jettisoned (or at least more cannily integrated into the narrative than was previously the case), yet the sense of nutty excess that powered classical Bollywood cinema is still evident.
On Christmas Eve the swarthy Albert (Vijay Sethupathi) finds himself afoot in Mumbai following an apparent sojourn in Dubai. He’s drawn to the attractive Maria (Katrina Kaif) and her young daughter Annie (Pari Maheshwari Sharma), who he stalks from a restaurant to a movie theater showing PINOCCHIO. In so doing Albert manages to ingratiate himself into Maria’s good graces, and get invited into her house, where Annie is put to bed and the two adults get to talking. This chat, in which it’s divulged that Albert has lost his wife and Maria is divorced, leads to a leisurely stroll through Mumbai, with a stop-off at Albert’s apartment and a return to Maria’s home.
It’s difficult not to get caught up in the drama of these early scenes, which are touching and authentic in their depiction of two lonely (but very photogenic) people coming together on Christmas Eve. The performances of Kaif and Sethupathi, Bollywood mega-stars both, are superlative, and director Sriram Raghavan’s handling of their budding romance is admirably calm and unshowy.
That’s until a corpse is discovered in Maria’s living room and everything changes. The Bollywood all-in-one model, in which several different genres are incorporated, becomes quite evident in a succession of events that include a shocking confession, a corpse that won’t stay put, the intercession of a potential rival for Maria’s affections and an investigation by two especially nosy cops.
The narrative convolutions initially work quite well, but by the film’s end grow tiresome, with a few too many long-buried secrets unveiled and what may be the least convincing marriage proposal in movie history. It doesn’t help matters that the runtime is a vastly inflated 144 minutes, which may be standard for Bollywood but is far too expansive for the material.
Vital Statistics
MERRY CHRISTMAS
Matchbox Pictures/Tips Films
Director: Sriram Raghavan
Producers: Kewal Garg, Sanjay Routray, Jaya Taurani, Ramesh Sadhuram Taurani, Anish Vikramaditya
Screenplay: Sriram Raghavan, Arijit Biswas, Anukriti Pandey, Pooja Ladha Surti, Vikramjeet Singh
(Based on a novel by Frederic Dard)
Cinematography: Madhu Neelakandan
Editing: Pooja Ladha Surti
Cast: Katrina Kaif, Vijay Sethupathi, Tinnu Anand, Pari Maheshwari Sharma, Vinay Pathak, Sanjay Kapoor, Luke Kenny, Sahil Vaid, Gayathrie Shankar, Ashwini Kalsekar, Radhika Apte, Hemant Gaur, Murlie, Milin Hole, Anil Dadheech, Prashant Parab