Merry Christmas — A Slow Immersive Engaging Mystery-Thriller Experience
A good antidote to high-octane over-the-top action drama movies
I was interested but not excited about this movie. Sriram Raghavan, the director, had impressed everyone with his previous movie Andhadhun which is perhaps one of the best suspense thrillers I’ve seen. Unlike others, I didn’t expect him to deliver another Andhadhun, given his filmography is a set of different kind of thrillers. Yet, the unexpected casting of Vijay Sethupati and Katrina Kaif and the trailer was intriguing. Another option this week was HanuMan but my wife wasn’t interested in watching that.
We woke up at 8 am but somehow made it to the 10 am show, thanks to my wife who managed to prepare breakfast along with getting ready. But I was disappointed that no trailer of the upcoming movies was shown before the movie. Again was disappointed when no trailer was shown during internal, especially because I cancelled my trip to the toilet to watch some trailer on the big screen, such as Fighter teaser. They showed video of one dance song of Shahid Kapoor’s upcoming movie, a nice video but not a trailer or teaser.
The movie itself begins with an intriguing scene that is not explained in the movie but upon retrospection makes sense once the movie ends. I enjoyed watching the slow simple life of people during the 1970s/80s when Mumbai was called Bombay. Even if this wasn’t a murder mystery, which is revealed before the interval, it could have been a decent love story of two strangers meeting on Christmas eve and falling for each other. In both aspects, the love story and the murder mystery, the movie takes its own time to build it.
Even though the first half seems slow and can bore some people, the dance by the two leads is perhaps the highlight of the experience before the murder mystery aspect is presented. Watching Sethupati dance for the first time, that too with one of the best dance divas of Bollywood was a delight to watch.
I liked how the director introduces certain things like caged bird and origami in the first half of the movie, to use it in second half of the movie. And when the mystery is revealed, it feels so obvious, as if it was right there in front of us but we couldn’t think beyond what the director was showing us. It benefits from being a simple mystery because it doesn’t have to bear the burden of overcomplicating things by trying to be oversmart.
The humor throughout the movie is used smartly, not overshadowing the tone and mood of the movie, yet providing the entertainment needed on the slow ride, especially in first half. Vijay Sethupati’s Hindi accent is so interesting that even bland and silly jokes land spectacularly. My favorite one was the chilled beer one.
Hollywood has a sort of a tradition of releasing at least one Christmas movie every year during the Christmas-New Year week. This time Bollywood has released one, a few weeks late, on an Indian festival, Sankranti. I liked this movie more than any other Hollywood Christmas movie I’ve watched. Perhaps that’s what growing up is all about.
Fun fact: this movie also has a Christmas miracle, as in such Hollywood movies, and it happens towards the end of the movie.
Overall, a good Christmas gift by Raghavan sir. I might watch this movie again on Netflix, just to appreciate the brilliance of the movie making and the experience of simple storytelling. You may wait till it is released on OTT or watch it with your family in a cinema hall near you.
Caution: it is not Andhadhun, it is a different kind of a good movie. Go with zero expectations and enjoy the experience.
