Sriram Raghavan Opens Up About The Criticism His Film Merry Christmas Received Upon Its Release

Sriram Raghavan’s recent release Merry Christmas debuted in theatres on January 12. The mystery drama features Katrina Kaif and Vijay Sethupathi in the lead roles and was filmed simultaneously in Hindi and Tamil. However, despite the stellar star cast and a gripping plot, the film received a mixed response from critics and a lukewarm reception at the box office. Months after the release, the filmmaker opened up on the movie’s lacklustre performance.

Merry Christmas director says he is ‘conscious’ of the viewer while editing

The director said he is aware that his latest cinematic outing Merry Christmas received a mixed response. He told PTI, “I am definitely conscious of the viewer sitting in the seat while I am editing because I am also the viewer, so I take both the chairs. Sometimes I watch my whole film as the viewer in the editing room and I wish there was a pill with which you can just forget the movie and watch it afresh, but I can’t do that.” The director added that his fix to the problem is by watching the film “again and again”.

Merry Christmas, a thriller with elements of dark humour, romance, murder and a bit of Christmas magic, starred Katrina Kaif and Vijay Sethupathi. The film shot simultaneously in Hindi and Tamil, follows two strangers Maria (Kaif) and Albert (Sethupathi) who cross paths on Christmas Eve. It is streaming on Netflix. 

Merry Christmas director defends the pace and ending of the movie 

Some viewers praised Merry Christmas, while others had issues with its “pace and ending”, which were risks the director willingly took. Raghavan said, “They had an issue with its pace but it was a risk I took because if I tried to hurry this movie, it would have lost the basic flavour. There are some people for whom the ending didn’t work. But that was a choice, the ending works for me. I had a couple of other endings also. We were even thinking of shooting two endings, one for Hindi and one for Tamil,” he said. 

Raghavan finally decided to go ahead with a similar ending for both versions and abandon the alternate ending as it was “more verbal”.
 

(With inputs from PTI)