Merry Christmas Review: An Intelligent Film That Struggles Under The Weight Of Its Promise
In an early scene that establishes the relationship between Maria and Albert, Maria leaves her child”s teddy bear in Albert”s care while she takes Annie to the washroom. Upon her return, Albert makes a stale teddy bear joke. While neither Maria nor Annie responds to his attempt at warmth, the moment strains under the pressure of becoming more than what it is. Here is a scene that wants to build rapport but struggles under the weight of artifice.
Most if not all of Merry Christmas suffers from this strange predicament. On the one hand, the movie intends to be a Sriram Raghavan cinema that promises a world of his quirks: scraps of old songs, old posters, a city that is not yet the city we know. Multiple shots of a rather bright red Colaba fire station. Two yellowing apartment buildings that carry the flavours of a Bombay captured in mantel photographs and floral wallpapers. In setting the city of Bombay and not Mumbai, Madhu Neelakandan’s camera follows Raghavan’s quirks, sometimes even lifting the movie beyond what it promises to offer. As a technically sound film, the visually rich frames along with the melodious songs immerse the audience in the world it has to offer.
This delightful world setting is indeed inviting. However, the movie struggles when it wants us to root for Albert (played by Vijaysethupathy) and Maria (played by Katrina Kaif). Although like its predecessor Andhadhun (2019), Merry Christmas promises thrills and reveals, it does not rely on suspense. On the contrary, it begins with an opening shot of two identical grinders that are churning the ends of a love gone wrong.
(Spoilers) A stranger arrives in the city on Christmas Eve to visit the home where his mother once lived. By coincidence, he meets a beautiful woman and her child. The rest of the tale revolves around a murder and the slow romance between the two protagonists. In his earlier directorial, Raghavan had put together a terrific cast that played off on each other’s strengths. In Merry Christmas however, Albert and Maria seem to be existing and emoting in response to an intelligent story. For instance, although Maria’s character reveals the story of her torture at the hands of her husband, this does not evoke emotion. Ideally, Maria should embody the guilt of killing her husband, the relief of saving her daughter, and possibly herself, and the anxiety of planning and following through with a murder. None of these sentiments are embodied in Kaif’s stiff performance that resists nuance. Often the viewer imagines Kaif to be a cold-blooded murderer although the reveal tells otherwise.
Vijay Sethupathy’s performance on the other hand is tasked with the challenge of charming the beautiful Maria. As an awkward Albert, Sethupathy plays the role well, sometimes even adding his own quirks to the character until he metamorphoses into a pseudo-detective who is invested in unravelling the mystery of the murder that Maria commits.
However, Sethupathy’s wonderful performance is constantly let down by the rootlessness of his character and Kaif’s performance. The film fails to provide Albert the rightful space he needs, often obfuscating the nuances of his character. For example, one is not clear why an ex-murder convict on parole is invested in a stranger and her child. There is a vague hint that this may be due to her resemblance to Albert’s late lover Rosie although Albert insists there is no resemblance. And yet, when we link the film’s emphasis on Maria’s dress, we understand why Maria may have reminded Albert of Rosie. And why he had to chase her, help her, and finally, assume the murder charge upon himself. The movie is therefore Albert’s tale of redemption for murdering his lover.
In this sense, Merry Christmas is our Vertigo (1958). In both movies, there is an elaborate murder scheme, mistaken identities (between Judy and Madeleine in Vertigo; Rosie and Maria in this film) that propel the action, and the bittersweet redemption in the climax (Scottie being cured of his fear of heights, and Albert’s atonement for his murder and forgiving himself). However, while Vertigo places the emotional arc of Scottie at the centre of its suspense, Merry Christmas often ignores it to pave the way for suspense. In the end, we are disappointed that Albert’s Christmas present, his release from jail, is taken from him and he is heading back to where he came from, without being able to relate to his redemption, marked by the smile that he leaves us with, at the end.
