Merry Christmas: Sriram Raghavan Calls Katrina Kaif-Vijay's Film 'Love Story Disguised As Thriller'

Katrina Kaif and Vijay Sethupathi starrer Merry Christmas has been performing well at the box office. Helmed by Sriram Raghavan, the film is set over the course of a night and revolves around two strangers whose lives get entwined after they cross paths at a restaurant on Christmas Eve. Now, in a recent interview, the director revealed that he envisioned the mystery-thriller as a 90-minute thriller without interval.

Sriram Raghavan opens up about Merry Christmas

Speaking to PTI, the director shared the story kept changing throughout the scripting process and eventually became an emotional love story about two broken people. "The biggest enjoyment for me as a director was the way it shifted while scripting to editing, slowly from that hard-nosed thriller to this romance. Initially, I thought it would be a 90-minute thriller with no intervals like Ittefaq. That was my thing. But as we fleshed it out, it changed for the better and the best."

"I’m so glad that we decided to shift the focus as we fell in love with these characters. It became a film about broken relationships and two broken people. Essentially, it is a love story, which is disguised like a thriller. That’s the big twist," Raghavan told PTI in an interview.

Sriram Raghavan reacts to Merry Christmas receiving a positive response

The 60-year-old filmmaker is happy that the film has garnered great reviews and word of mouth is only getting stronger day by day. "I’m getting a good response. Many people have seen it twice and it has touched them in a manner I didn’t expect," he said, calling the film a fun way to explore the spirit of Christmas through themes of "sacrifice and redemption".

The director hopes that the numbers go up in the second week of the release. He said, "We are expecting the second week to be good. Though many people were like, we came expecting this film to be like Andhadhun, but this happens with everyone after a successful film. I liked Shaan’ as much as Sholay," he said, giving the example of the two Ramesh Sippy hits which released five years apart.