How did you convince yourself to turn 'Merry Christmas', an adaptation of a French crime novel, into a love story?
The plan was to make it a 90-minute racy thriller without an interval. But as we began to flesh it out, the characters took a life of their own. That is when the focus shifted from a plot-centric story to a character-centric story. So, convincing myself to make this story into a film wasn’t tough. It took me a couple of years to get the movie rights, though.
Was the retro setting used because some of the key pieces of the plot wouldn’t have fit into a 2020 scenario?
The reason largely was to evoke nostalgia, and because things like mobile phones, CCTV are impediments to stories like these. The story wouldn’t have worked.
Was 'Pinocchio' a metaphor for ‘Don’t poke your nose in others’ business’? Was the caged birdie toy a metaphor for prison? And, some people seem to extrapolate the birdie to be a tribute to Alfred Hitchcock’s Birds.
You are right about the birdie, and since the translated book story was titled Bird in a Cage, it made complete sense to me. Pinocchio was about the nose growing longer with lies and deceptions. But, the birdie toy had no connection with Birds. What I enjoy though is that in these kinds of movies people let their imagination run wild. I also read that some people felt Maria was a ghost.
In Merry Christmas, the first one hour moved in almost real time. Please share some insight into the risk you took in creating a deliberate narrative?
In the initial draft, she brings him home, offers him a drink, puts her child to bed, changes her gown and they go to a disco where they dance away and come back home. But I felt that this was too rushed. Also, Katrina (Kaif) dancing in a discotheque would make it an item number, and there would be nothing new in that.
Later, I had this alternate idea of Albert and Maria coming home and spending 15 minutes, and that it would be great if it could be in real time. If we observe the time on the clock, it moves in real time. That gave us the scope to let the two talk about themselves. And yes, while writing this narrative that you finally saw, we kept getting reminded about the audience’s attention span. But, the risk had to be taken.
Talk to us about envisioning the setting for a romantic thriller.
I shared with my production designer and my DoP my subconscious influences. For example, in Hitchcock’s Vertigo, nothing much happens in the first half except that he follows her. Dial M for Murder was largely shot in one house since it was a play. And, because my production designer created the appropriate set designs by applying thought and a good understanding of the script, the house itself became one of the characters of the story. It gives you the feeling that you are reading a book.
Were Vijay Sethupathi and Katrina Kaif your original choices?
I had narrated the story to Varun Dhawan when making the film was just a thought. But, when we actually began making it, the first person to come on board was Katrina.
I had this hunch that she would be wonderful in this. Besides, she had told me that she would like to do something in this genre. I had a tough time finding the male lead because they needed to hit it off as a pair. And, I didn’t want to repeat a known pair. Vijay was so out-of-the-box that it defied all conventional casting rules.
And the dosa and molagappodi went well with Vijay. All that was included after Vijay came on board. Before that, the episode of Rosie’s murder was conceived inside a train.
Was there a specific reason behind the dedication to Shakti Samanta?
Shakti Samanta has done crime films in the 1960s and romantic films in the 1970s. I love his considerable body of work. I grew up on Aradhana and Kati Patang. But, he has been largely forgotten now. Hence, the dedication.
