REVIEW 790: MERRY CHRISTMAS

 

Release date:	January 12, 2024
Director:	Sriram Raghavan
Cast:	Katrina Kaif, Vijay Sethupathi, Sanjay Kapoor, Pari Maheshwari Sharma, Vinay Pathak, Pratima Kannan, Luke Kenny, Cameos: Radhika Apte, Gayathrie Shankar
Language:	2 versions of this film were shot – one Tamil, one Hindi – with different supporting casts. This is a review of the Hindi version.

 

“So this is Christmas / And what have you done?”

These words from the 1971 John Lennon-Yoko Ono song Happy Xmas (War Is Over) flash on the screen as a prelude to the director Sriram Raghavan’s Merry Christmas. They are played in quick succession with a tribute to Shakti Samanta and a teaser featuring the film’s stars Katrina Kaif and Vijay Sethupathi. The teaser alerts us to Raghavan’s intent to deceive and reveal in equal measure minus melodrama through this narrative. 

 

Happy Xmas – credited here to Lennon alone – is an introspective carol that “emerged from an era of activism and opposition to the Vietnam War”, as a blog by a Lecturer of International Politics on the University of Liverpool’s website explains. There are no manipulative global superpowers at work in Raghavan’s Merry Christmas. The battle here is familial, resulting in an unexpected alliance. And the director’s treatment is devised as a paean to Samanta, maker of such classic thrillers as Howrah Bridge (1958), China Town (1962) and Kati Patang (1971). 

 

Raghavan is a master of mystery. His filmography includes the stop-in-your-tracks delightful Andhadhun (2018), and his gripping debut feature Ek Hasina Thi (2004). Merry Christmas – an adaptation of the French novel Le Monte-Charge(English title: Bird in a Cage) by Frédéric Dard, with a Hindi script by Raghavan, Arijit Biswas, Pooja Ladha Surti (also the editor) and Anukriti Pandey – is a crime drama aspiring to be a love saga. It is a slow burn that is intriguing in its first hour, but declines after its big reveal. 

 

Since even minor specifics could be spoilers, here is a broad introduction to Merry Christmas’ plot. Kaif plays Maria who runs a bakery in Mumbai. She is married and a mother. Her daughter Annie is mute. Sethupathi’s Albert is returning home to Mumbai after several years, following his mother’s passing. When their paths cross, Albert feels an inexplicable empathy for Maria that goes beyond the appeal of her good looks. His past quickly catches up with him though, so he walks away after a warm encounter. When Albert realises that he is not the only one with a secret, however, he is fascinated and unable to stay away. 

 

Few Hindi directors have explored film noir as persistently as Raghavan has and made it his own. Merry Christmas’ gold-tinged world of warm lighting and shadow-rimmed frames has a furtive quality from the start. Its tone is deceptively understated as Maria and Albert go about their business on what initially seems like a routine evening for two lonely people on the town scoping each other out. Yet Raghavan builds an atmosphere aimed at keeping a viewer’s antennae on alert. 

 

The screen is filled with suggestive imagery that plays with our minds and plays on the traditions of crime fiction: a character who sculpts origami swans, speechless little Annie (Pari Maheshwari Sharma) with the innocent wide eyes, a high-ceilinged apartment in a building with an ornate cage for an elevator, an attractive trinket, a watchful giant teddy bear. Besides, Maria and Albert have an aura of sadness about them, and they’re alone in a big city on Christmas eve, a time usually spent with family and community. Something’s gotta give. Obviously. 

 

The determined refusal to pinpoint the year in which this story is set adds to its inscrutability. 

 

I enjoyed Merry Christmas’ opening hour immensely, the sense of expectation, Kaif’s sweetness, Sethupathi’s extraordinary ability to elevate even stray words and glances into moments of great humour or poignance, the empathetic gaze on Maria in this troubling era of Animals and animosity, the art design, the cinematic references, the vintage tunes complementing Pritam and Daniel B. George’s music, Maria and Albert’s lively dance, and a slimeball played deliciously by Sanjay Kapoor. It is also nice to see a normalised representation of a religious minority that is not often visible in Hindi films these days, and an acknowledgement of the diversity within the community that an earlier era of Hindi cinema restricted to Goans and Anglo-Indians. Albert’s full name is Albert Arogyasami, but he is neither a caricatured Christian nor the stereotyped ‘Madrasi’ that Hindi filmdom was once notorious for. However, after a grand deception is unmasked – I can’t say more than this – the writing and direction get lax, the unplugged holes in the deception become apparent immediately and a glaring giveaway is even allowed to linger by the perpetrator.

 

The understatedness that works in Merry Christmas’ favour through much of the narrative delivers diminishing returns from then on, culminating in a climax with limited impact. What is missing in that final stretch is a magnetic pull between the leads and an urgency in the build-up that was sorely needed for the ending to provide a release. It doesn’t help that Maria’s character remains under-explored in comparison with Albert’s, or that Kaif’s likeability is no match for Sethupathi’s casual brilliance. As a consequence, as the curtain falls, it is possible to read Albert’s motivations and emotion but Maria is still an enigma, so it cannot be said with certainty whether she is driven by anything more than desperation and gratitude. 

 

The last half hour of Merry Christmas feels as if it was left to direct and edit itself and rely on the leading man’s speaking eyes to fill any gaps at that point. 

 

The philosophy behind the film is encapsulated by Albert in this sentence: “Sometimes violence is better than sacrifice.” Ultimately, Merry Christmas suggests that violence inevitably necessitates sacrifice – by someone – but the closing is too loosely handled for the point to be compelling.

 

Merry Christmas succeeds considerably as a thriller before losing its way, but is unable to establish itself as a romance. A pity, because while the going is good, it really is damn good. 

 

Rating (out of 5 stars): 2.75   

 

Footnote: The credits walk a tightrope with a smartness that made me smile. Kaif’s name comes first in the beginning, Sethupathi’s comes first in the closing scroll, in a nod to their massive stardom in their respective industries, Hindi and Tamil, without succumbing to the gender bias that pervades all Indian film industries or ignoring concerns about Hindi belt supremacism. 

 

Running time:

144 minutes

 

Poster courtesy: IMDB 

REVIEW 785: RAAT AKELI HAI

Release date: July 31, 2020 (on Netflix) 

Director: Honey Trehan

Cast: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Radhika Apte, Padmavati Rao, Shivani Raghuvanshi, Nishant Dahiya, Ila Arun, Shreedhar Dubey, Aditya Srivastava, Riya Shukla, Shweta Tripathi, Swanand Kirkire, Tigmanshu Dhulia

Language: Hindi

Sometimes a film has the power to grip you from the very second it takes off. Honey Trehan’s Raat Akeli Hai (RAH) does that, grabbing attention with a vice-like hold from the moment it opens with a chilling murder on a deserted highway in the inky blackness of the night. 

Fast forward to five years later, and there is another murder: a rich old man is found shot and with his face bashed up on his wedding night. Inspector Jatil Yadav is called in to investigate (yes, Jatil, not Jatin – there is an amusing story there).

The elderly victim had money and a wealth of people around him. Yadav realises within minutes of being inserted into their lives that no one is above suspicion: not the dead man’s pregnant daughter, not his drug-taking son or the son-in-law whose sole concern is his claim to the family fortune. Then there is the victim’s enigmatic sister and niece, an arrogant nephew, the young bride herself and the domestic help who seems to know more than she lets on. 

While sifting through clues and possible motivations, Yadav, who is edging towards middle age, must also deal with his pesky albeit well-meaning mother’s marriage goals for him.  

Trehan has so far been known as one of Bollywood’s top casting directors. The meticulousness with which he and his colleague Taran Bajaj have picked actors for even minuscule roles in RAH explains his reputation for excellence in that department. The confidence with which he has helmed this film belies the reality that it marks his directorial debut. 

Every frame of RAH, every technical aspect, has been handled with extreme care. The film plays out mostly in darkness. Open spaces late at night where fires are replicated by the reflective surfaces on which they fall and the red-tinted low-lit interiors of homes elegantly captured by DoP Pankaj Kumar set up, heighten and sustain the sense of intrigue and suspense in the narrative. It can be safely concluded that Kumar has superhuman abilities since his repertoire ranges from the visual philosophy of Ship of Theseus to the atmospherics of RAH.    

The writing by Smita Singh (who has been credited with the story, screenplay and dialogues) pays heed to even the minutiae in the life and demeanour of each character. RAH is an effective crime thriller, but goes well beyond that to also serve as a running commentary on state politics and the sociology of small-town north India. 

The most visceral statement emanating from Singh’s story is about the way society punishes women victims of sexual abuse, irrespective of class, and views them with suspicion while covering up the sins of their male predators. She also finds space for colourism, a telling reference to the double standards inherent in Hindutva politics, and a spectrum of hypocrisy where a target of prejudice may very well turn out to be prejudiced in their own way – like the man who is rejected by a woman because he is too dark-skinned for her taste, who in turn says her attire indicates that she is not as “susheel” (good, modest) as he would like his wife to be. 

“Susheel” is translated as “virginal” in the subtitles, which is an interesting interpretation of the Hindi word. It is a measure of the importance Raat Akeli Hai gives to detail that the subs have been done by no less a personage than Abhishek Chaubey (director of Dedh Ishqiya and Udta Punjab, and one of this film’s producers) along with Utsav Maitra. 

 This team clearly has an affection for language and is aware that subtitles across Indian cinemas often wreck the director’s and writer’s intent. Singh’s dialogues merit every bit of that love. 

Despite the large ensemble of characters, Singh and Trehan make each one distinctive. 

Nawazuddin Siddiqui as Jatil Yadav switches with characteristic ease from hard-as-nails policeman to a softer version of himself. 

Radhika Apte as the much-hated bride, Radha, embodies an oppressed yet defiant, despairing yet still spirited woman wronged. 

Each actor stands out in their own right, though I must say it was a pleasure to see Riya Shukla – who earlier played Swara Bhasker’s acid-tongued daughter in Nil Battey Sannata – here playing a significant part as the terrified household help. 

In his role as a senior policeman, Tigmanshu Dhulia’s natural timing seems particularly well-suited to the local flavour of the dialogues. 

Shreedhar Dubey makes himself likeable as Yadav’s gossipy deputy who personifies casual misogyny with his assumptions about who done it – a reminder that patriarchy is perpetuated not necessarily by men with horns on their heads but by the ‘nice guys’ too. 

And Ila Arun is utterly loveable as Yadav’s mother. I melted into a puddle as I heard her explain what his father meant to her. 

In the midst of so much that is good, two points about RAH are a cause for concern. Firstly, the relationship Yadav tries to build with a woman in the film is exploitative because of the unequal power equation between them, far worse than perhaps even a doctor wooing a patient or a lawyer wooing a client because when he first makes an aggressive overture towards her, he is in a position to destroy her completely. This is not to say that no man would make such a move in real life, but that this particular man’s behaviour here seems inconsistent with his characterisation until then and thereafter, and that the script does not bat an eyelid in the matter, which becomes noteworthy considering the progressiveness of the rest of the writing. 

The finale gets stretched for over 20 minutes after the big reveal, partly due to the Agatha Christie-style gathering of all the players in a single room for the detective to say his piece (which is sweet) and partly due to a needless bow to the conventional definition of happily-ever-after. The closing scene feels odd not just because it is unnecessary but also because of the lack of chemistry between the two actors and characters involved. By this time though, RAH had me completely engrossed and in a forgiving mood.

It helps that the film closes right then with one of the mood songs Sneha Khanwalkar has created for it. Khanwalkar’s soundtrack and Karan Kulkarni’s background score play a crucial role in RAH’s pensive tone. 

Raat Akeli Hai (The Night Is Alone / Lonely / Solitary) marks the advent on the Hindi film scene of a bold new voice. Here is some breaking news of the happy variety: director Honey Trehan has arrived.  

Rating: 3.5 (out of 5 stars)

Running time: 150 minutes

Photo courtesy: IMDB

REVIEW 650: BAAZAAR

Release date:	October 26, 2018
Director:	Gauravv K. Chawla
Cast: Language:	Saif Ali Khan, Rohan Mehra, Radhika Apte, Chitrangda Singh Hindi

In a brief job interview in the conference room of a leading Mumbai stockbroking firm, Baazaar’s hero Rizwan Ahmed is challenged by a smart alec MBA to sell a cup of coffee in that room. “Sell it and the job is yours,” he says. To underline his desire to belittle Rizwan, the fellow spits into a mug before handing it to him.

Rizwan is from a small town, but he is no shrinking puppy. He coolly drinks the spit, puts down a hundred bucks on the table and says, “Sold, Sir. To myself.”

(Note: that was not a spoiler – the scene is in the film’s promotional trailer.)

Ooh! So clever, na?

Or maybe not? Remember, the said smart alec only asked for the coffee to be sold, not drunk. The point of getting Rizwan to drink the spit was to underline the lengths to which he is willing to go to make it big – and of course to come up with a memorable scene – but if you think about it, far from being smart, he was being downright stupid, and the same can be said of the scene, based as it is on a gaping loophole.

When director Gauravv K. Chawla’s Baazaar is not trying to impress us in this fashion with its coolth, it remains inoffensive and mildly engaging even if generic. Rizwan is from Allahabad and keen to strike gold in Mumbai’s share market. His God in the business is Shakun Kothari (Saif Ali Khan), a Gujarati billionaire who has risen similarly from the ranks.

When Shakun is not buying and selling shares, betraying friends and selling his soul, he hangs out with his beautiful wife Mandira (Chitrangda Singh) – a khaandaani raees who has never known want – and their two lovely daughters. When Rizwan is not on the trading floor, he is building a romantic relationship with his gorgeous, unscrupulous colleague Priya (Radhika Apte).

A dogged SEBI official, meanwhile, has made it his goal to pin Shakun down one day.

Rizwan deals in stocks and shares, the film deals in the lines people cross and consciences that are killed on the road to wealth, and whether it is necessary to be unemotional and amoral to get there. The most interesting parts come when Shakun turns on persons who accuse him of being a fraud – suddenly, his calm exterior cracks, he snarls and gets violent as he lists out the fraudulent measures adopted by the other individual without any qualms until he was outwitted by Shakun.

There is an allusion to class bias in one of these confrontations. Corruption, after all, is less abhorrent in many Indian eyes when it comes packaged in designer business suits, an urbane exterior and a slick English accent. What Baazaar hints at therefore is also the hypocrisy of those who judge the corrupt. These are the elements in the script that should have been explored further. Unfortunately, Chawla is far more committed to the thriller aspect of the film, and that part is just so-so. While most of Baazaar is devoted to Rizwan’s rise and fall, his revenge and the accompanying dialoguebaazi come too quickly and too conveniently to be either convincing or gripping. Even Baazaar’s expensive look and colour scheme that foregrounds white, red and steel gray, is too familiar from past Bollywood projects that are distinguished by their conviction that they are suave. The result is a middling film, meriting neither love nor hate.

Radhika Apte’s striking presence makes hers the most impactful of the film’s supporting characters. Chitrangda Singh looks stunning, but has the same expression pasted on her face throughout. Rohan Mehra, who gets the meatiest role in Baazaar, is okay as an actor, I guess, but there is nothing about his performance or his personality that explains why so much faith has been invested in him. 

Saif Ali Khan’s swag never flags in his performance as Shakun. No one can make evil look quite as attractive as this Khan. That said, he really needs to take a long hard look at his script choices. He is unarguably the Hindi film industry’s most under-rated star actor, an artiste who does not get the credit he deserves for the depth he is capable of because he is so good at what he does, that he makes it look easy. Someone please convince him to revive the instincts that led him to Dil Chahta Hai, Hum Tum, Ek Hasina Thi and Omkara, and to get himself more projects worthy of his gift.

Until then, those of us who respect his innate talent and charisma will be left continuously tearing our hair out wondering when he will find the next Farhan Akhtar, the next Kunal Kohli, the next Sriram Raghavan or the next Vishal Bhardwaj of his life. Baazaar ain’t a patch on any of the above films, but it is not intolerable either. What it is is forgettable. Saif Ali Khan is the best thing about this ordinary film.

Rating (out of five stars): *1/2

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	140 minutes

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

https://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/bollywood/baazaar-movie-review-saif-ali-khans-swag-never-flags-in-this-unflaggingly-middling-affair-5450061.html

Poster courtesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baazaar