The director of an adaptation inspired by Bollywood of a Christmas song said that she thought that Charles Dickens would approve.
Gurinder Chadha said that his musical, a Christmas karma, shares “exactly the same” message as the news of the author of 1843.
She said: “All I had to do was interpreted it through my goal today. [Dickens] had already given me a structure. He had already given me the characters.
“My job was to say, how is it relevant for today, and what is my message to the world? And I hope they are not too different.”
She added: “You know, 200 years later, my film said exactly the same thing that Dickens said. It’s just that it is through my goal as a British-Asian woman, basically.”
Posters promoting a release of Christmas Karma in November put Kunal Nayyar, on the left, and Eva Longoria
Chadha is best known for her films, like Beckham and her adaptation, the bride and prejudices of Bollywood Austen.
His new British musical presents the character holder of Dickens as a British-Indian man named Sood, played by Kunal Nayyar of the Big Bang Theory, who “despises the poor and the refugees”.
Speaking of previous adaptations of the novel, the director said that his version remained closer to the original history.
“It’s a very empathetic story and often people don’t really get to the heart,” said Chadha.
She said: “What I read later is that Charles Dickens suffered from depression … and he wrote a Christmas song during one of his very depressed moments, which is why he saw being deliciously happy to really sad.
“And when you study it, you see that now often adaptations clean and make it more angry, but he was dealing with sadness.”
Chadha cited her own sadness in the face of “isolation” felt by many during the cocovated pandemic, when she started writing the film script after a visit to the former Dicken house in Clerkenwell.
Its subsequent drafts preceded the war in Ukraine, the conflict in the Middle East and the disorders of illegal migration in the United Kingdom, as well as other global events that have “polarized the world”.
Ms. Chadha says that her version remains closer to the original history of Dickens compared to previous adaptations – Hulton -Detsch collection
“I could not have imagined the world today when I wrote it for the first time,” she said, adding: “It’s just increasingly relevant, the circumstances of the world, and that is why I think it reflects even more what Dickens meant with his book.”
“Advocacy for a nicer and more tolerant ‘Britain’
The news is a story of redemption, which follows Scrooge when he meets a supernatural calculation. Ms. Chadha wrote in the declaration of her director according to which it is the “advocacy of the author for a more kind and more tolerant Britain”.
She said to the Telegraph: “[Dickens] He was nice, he wrote at a time when the world was so polarized between rich and poor. And hello, 2025!
His comments follow the release of the film’s trailer, which shows that Sood grazing with the visions of the three minds, played by Eva Longoria (past), Billy Porter (present) and Boy George (Future).
Hugh Bonneville also appears as a ghost of the deceased trading partner of Sood, Jacob Marley.
Chadha described the musical, scheduled for the release in November, as a “British well-being film”.
She said, “I’m really proud of this film. Especially in the current climate, I am really proud that it is a British film really well-being [because] We don’t get much.
“Whether you have 90 or new, or even younger, it’s just a tolerant story of what all the churches would say in their own festive seasons.”
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