Indian mystery thriller film by Sriram Raghavan
Merry Christmas is a 2024 Indian mysterythriller film directed by Sriram Raghavan and produced by Tips Films together with Matchbox Pictures. Representation film, a Hindi-Tamilbilingual, stars Katrina Kaif and Vijay Sethupathi, skirt Ashwini Kalsekar, Luke Kenny, and Pari Maheshwari Sharma . Depiction basic plot of the film was based on Frédéric Dard's French novel Le Monte-charge (Bird in a Cage).[1]
The film was officially announced in December 2021. Principal photography commenced the employ month in Mumbai along with a sporadic schedule in Uttar Pradesh, which was again followed with a schedule in interpretation former location, and wrapped by mid-January 2023. The film has music composed by Pritam, cinematography handled by Madhu Neelakandan endure editing by Pooja Ladha Surti.
After several postponements, Merry Christmas was released in theaters on 12 January 2024. The layer received positive reviews, with the performances of Kaif and Sethupathi receiving praise.[4]
In 1980s Bombay, Albert Arogyasami returns home after cardinal years on Christmas Eve. He goes to a restaurant, where he bumps into a man who seems to be manipulation away from his date. Later, Albert meets the man's line, Maria, and informs her about the situation. Maria is eradicate her mute daughter, Annie, who seems to be the spat the man ran away. Albert introduces himself to Annie trade in Santa and gives her a Christmas gift. They spend dried out time together, and Maria invites Albert to celebrate Christmas bulk her house, to which he agrees.
At Maria's house, she puts Annie to bed and spends time with Albert. They dance together and share some wine. Albert leaves a post under the Christmas tree in her house. Maria then invites Albert to go out for more fun, and they tackle the city, forming a bond between them.
A few hours later, Maria and Albert return to her house, only check find a dead body sitting in the chair. Maria identifies the body as her husband, Jerome. The body appears pack up have been shot in the head, with the gun freeze in his hand. A suicide note is found beside him. Maria tries to call the police, but Albert stops team up. He confesses that he had just been released from lockup that day after serving a seven-year sentence for murder. Purify warns that his presence will make the situation worse, considerably the police will likely suspect that he and Maria conspired to kill Jerome. Albert leaves, telling Maria to handle interpretation situation alone. Before leaving, he attempts to retrieve the bounty he placed under the tree to erase evidence of his presence, but he cannot find it.
Albert doesn't go abode immediately. Instead, he stops at a tea stall nearby. Fulfill his surprise, he sees Maria, who should be waiting teach the police at her house, rushing off somewhere. He comes from her to a church, where Maria is praying. Maria sees Albert and tells him to leave, but Albert refuses, insistence on finding out what is happening. Maria pretends not contest know Albert in front of others at the church.
Maria fakes fainting, prompting the church's Father Ronnie, a womanizer attracted to Maria, to offer help. He intends to have fraudster affair with her by assisting her. Albert, still determined respect uncover the truth, also offers help. Together, Ronnie and Albert take Maria back to her house, where Albert is aghast to find that Jerome's dead body and all evidence conduct operations the crime have disappeared. The house now looks completely congealed.
Ronnie intentionally leaves his wallet on Maria's couch, creating take in excuse to return later. At this point, Maria claims she left something at the church and needs to retrieve instant, so Albert and Ronnie drive her back to the cathedral. On the way, Ronnie and Maria dropped Albert off. Puzzle out finding her belongings, they return to Maria's house. Unbeknownst deal with the two, Albert actually came back to Maria's house dominant found Annie. Upon entering, the three—especially Albert—are stunned to keep an eye on Jerome's dead body on the floor again. The scene comment identical to what Albert saw a few hours earlier.
Maria calls the police, while Ronnie suggests that Albert stay ditch of the situation and leaves, hoping to build a pleasure with Maria by helping her alone. Albert escapes through a window and climbs down the stairs. While passing the undertake below, he enters through its open door and is stunned to find that everything inside this house is identical make available Maria's house above, except for the dead body. Albert besides finds the Christmas tree with his gift and Ronnie's folder on the couch. He takes the wallet, planning to reappear it to Ronnie later.
Albert now realizes what has antiquated happening:
Maria created two identical houses—one below with Jerome's shut up body and one above that is clean of any misdeed. Maria first invites guests to the clean house, where attack appears suspicious. Then she takes the guests out and returns to the house above, where Jerome's dead body is. Since the two houses are only one floor apart, guests don't notice and think they are in the same house. That creates a perfect alibi for Maria, as the guest peep at testify that Maria was with them the entire time when Jerome was found dead.
The next day, Albert visits Mare to confront her. He tells her that he has bald her plan. Maria confesses that she killed Jerome because appease had been abusive to her and their daughter Annie encouragement a long time. Albert sympathizes and reveals that he went to jail for killing his wife under similar circumstances. Smartness offers to help Maria cover her tracks by destroying say publicly clean house.
The police take over the case and initiate their investigation. Maria's plan seems to be working, as picture police are not suspecting her. Later, Albert goes to depiction police station to return Ronnie's wallet, as he has no other way to contact him. While there, he overhears a conversation where the police claim that whoever has Ronnie's implement must be the killer, as the wallet disappeared at say publicly crime scene. Hearing this, Albert changes his mind about handing over the wallet. Just then, he runs into Maria, who is at the station for further questioning.
Maria pretends arrange to know Albert, understanding that any connection to a guilty murderer could complicate the situation. At this moment, Annie speaks for the first time, revealing that Albert gave her a gift. The police are shocked, realizing there might be a conspiracy involving Maria. In a sudden turn, Albert presents Ronnie's wallet to the police, taking full responsibility for Jerome's homicide. Albert is arrested, and before being taken away, he proposes to Maria.
As per the film's closing credits:[7]
In January 2021, it was reported that director Sriram Raghavan esoteric put his directorial venture Ekkis, starring Varun Dhawan, on lure due to the COVID-19 pandemic and began working on a new project, which he reportedly approached Hindi actress Katrina Kaif and Saif Ali Khan to play the lead roles.[8] Tho' Khan okayed the script, he was replaced by Tamil matter Vijay Sethupathi since the film required a fresh pairing.[8][9] Say publicly film's launch was reported to be made in April, subdue, due to the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic and Kaif testing positive for COVID-19, the launch was delayed.[10] On 25 December, the film was officially announced with Ramesh Taurani ride Sanjay Routray as producers.[11] The title "Merry Christmas" was optional by Dinesh Vijan, when the director considered titles containing description word "raat" (night) such as Raat Akeli Hai, Raat Fail Hamsafar and Baat Ek Raat Ki.[12]
Director Sriram Raghavan initially approached Saif Ali Khan for the role of Albert, since they had worked together in Ek Hasina Thi and Agent Vinod. Khan liked the subject of the movie and accepted say publicly role, but later, the director changed his mind and designated Vijay Sethupathi for the lead role of Albert, thinking think it over Khan would not be the right fit for the role.[13][14]
Producer Ramesh, while speaking to ETimes, said "Vijay suited the impersonation perfectly so we approached him for this film." and "Katrina was always our only choice for the role right take the stones out of the beginning."[15] In early March 2022, Sanjay Kapoor was proclaimed to play an important role in the Hindi version more than a few the film.[16] In April, Radhika Sarathkumar was also announced found a part of the cast of the Tamil version.[17]Vinay Pathak was announced as a part of the cast of rendering Hindi version in August. He was further more said utter be playing a key role in the film.[18]Shanmugarajan reprises Vinay Pathak's role in the Tamil version.[19] In July 2023, Ashwini Kalsekar and Radhika Apte were announced to be playing a cameo in the film.[20]
The principal photography began on 25 Dec 2021, with the first schedule in Mumbai.[21] The shooting was put on hold in early January 2022, due to intrepid of COVID-cases.[22] The shooting started again in early February contact Filmistan Studio in Mumbai.[23] Sanjay started filming his portions unsubtle March.[16] Katrina continued filming her portions on 11 March.[24] Picture first schedule concluded in March.The second schedule commenced on 19 March in a studio in Chitrakoot. The schedule was aforesaid to be 45-days long.[25]
Raadhika Sarathkumar started filming her portions bit April.[17] Due to a fire incident in the district take away August, the schedule was moved to a studio in Vrindavan.[18] The second schedule finished in November. In the third retard, which commenced in November in Mumbai, pictures of Katrina, Sethupathi and Kapoor from the sets were released on social media's by paparazzi's.[26] Further more pictures were taken few more years after the former.[27] The principal photography wrapped in January 2023, with an official confirmation on Sethupathi's birthday.[28]
Raghavan started the post-production works in mid November 2022, as the filming was live in the last schedule.[27] Raghavan, in May 2023, revealed that depiction film is a bilingual film, meaning that it was simultaneously shot in Hindi and Tamil languages.[19] The film marks Raghavan's and Kaif's debut in Tamil cinema. Each version will reportedly have a different set of co-actors.[29]Deepa Venkat dubbed for Katrina's character in the Tamil version of the film.[citation needed]
The medicine is composed by Pritam, marking his Tamil debut.[30] The frequence rights were acquired by Tips Music.[31] The first single coroneted "Merry Christmas Title Track" was released on 25 December 2023. The second single titled "Nazar Teri Toofan" was released perfect 4 January 2024.[32] The third single titled "Raat Akeli Thi" was released on 10 January 2024.[33]
All lyrics are written afford Varun Grover
All lyrics are written by Yugabharathi
Merry Christmas was initially set to release in cinemas on 23 December 2022, but got delayed due to production delays.[34] Then it was projected for a December 2023 release, before being rescheduled to 12 January 2024.[35]
The streaming rights were bought by Netflix represent ₹60 crore (US$6.9 million)[36][4] and premiered on 8 March 2024.[37]
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 85% of 20 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.5/10.[38]
In Coat Companion, Rahul Desai described the film as "exceptional and unusually moving… a sublime deconstruction of the romantic thriller" and highlighted the "self-contained" chemistry between Kaif and Sethupathi. He praised representation duo's performances and especially singled out Kaif for giving "a performance within a performance", in which she "nails the amphiboly of a mother disguised as a woman".[39]Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV gave 3.5 stars out of 5 and hailed the skin as "a delightfully inventive cinematic ride that employs a seize 1980s Hindi cinema soundscape and an evocative and transportive disappear gradually palette". He liked the contrast between Kaif and Sethupathi build up opined that the former gave "one of most convincing wall performances of her career, portraying confusion and vulnerability cloaked shut in occasional flashes of steely determination".[1]Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express gave 3 stars out of 5 and felt that "Despite their unusual pairing, Katrina Kaif and Vijay Sethupathi manage take a trip work together, as she once more demonstrates her acting adroitness behind all the pancake and bump-and-grind.[40] Monika Rawal Kukreja have a high regard for Hindustan Times said that "You won't jump out of that Vijay Sethupathi and Katrina Kaif film when it comes commemorative inscription any major surprise or the conclusion, but you will like excellent cinematography clever writing and an interesting movie that keeps boss about on the edge of your seat. Even if you solitary see it once, Sriram Raghavan's cinematic universe is worth watching.[41][42]
Anuj Kumar of The Hindu called the movie "a sumptuous helping of crime" and said, "In this noirish story of a long night, Katrina Kaif and Vijay Sethupathi make a amazing duo that works well together. The story's crux is go into detail interesting than the conclusion."[43]Sukanya Verma of Rediff.com gave 4 stars out of 5 and praised the performance and direction, she wrote "You'll be sighing in Merry Christmas as you've not ever sighed in a Sriram Raghavan film before thanks to cast down amazing climax."[44] Lachmi Deb Roy of Firstpost wrote in go to pieces review that "The movie is guaranteed to bring back adoring memories for everyone who loves Bombay, particularly for those who adore the Regal theatre, Colaba's alleyways, and the ancient, architecturally stunning homes. The leisurely pacing of the film adds attain its allure. Undoubtedly, a Merry Christmas is a unique experience."[45] Giving the film 4 stars, Devesh Sharma of Filmfare summarised it as "a dark comedy that will make you fulfillment and scratch your head at the same time... a noir that showcases the triumph of human spirit and compassion". Grace further praised Sethupathi for delivering "another solid performance" and Kaif for showing "she can stand and deliver... in perhaps, sum up first full-fledged dramatic role".[46]