Gurinder Chadha's 'Christmas Karma; spins timeless festive magic with cultural flair

Movie review: Christmas Karma 

Cast: Kunal Nayyar, Boy George and Eva Longoria

Director: Gurinder Chadha

Rating: 7/10

BRITAIN-BASED producer/director Gurinder Chadha, who shot to fame with her movie Bend it Like Beckham over two decades ago, is back with a tale combining the traits of the Indian-origin British generation with local Christmas traditions in this movie.

Adapted from the Charles Dickens classic A Christmas Carol, Eshan Sood (Kunal Nayyar) reprises the character of the miser Scrooge in the book. He fires his entire staff on Christmas Eve because they are having an unauthorised Christmas party and even refuses to pay for extra electricity at his house for warming during the harsh winter of Christmas in the UK.

As he prepares to spend the night alone, Sood is visited by the Ghosts of Christmas Past and Future, played by renowned actors Boy George and Eva Longoria, who show him how his attitude is set to ruin the lives of many others and his own. As in the book with Scrooge, Sood changes his attitude on Christmas Day, to the surprise of everyone who knows him, because of this.

Chadha also addresses a range of social issues, including the expulsion of Asians from Uganda by dictator Idi Amin (Sood was one of them as a child), racism in the UK, and gender bias.

Starting off as a bit of a boring drag for the first 20 minutes or so, the plot is developed after that to turn tragic situations at a time of giving into a feel-good movie for the holiday season.

Fakir Hassen is a veteran Bollywood critic who has written three books on the subject.

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