‘If you’re not satisfied with the fix, here’s a soothing balm’: Gurinder Chadha on her reboot of A Christmas Carol | Gurinder Chadha

TFirst, Gurinder Chadha was wandering around the Charles Dickens Museum in London, trying to connect with the author’s spirit. The director asked him: “If you were alive today, what story would you tell?” At the same time, I wondered, “What can I offer as my own take on this wonderful story of yours?”

Although Dickens’s ghost did not materialize, she found her answers and, during lockdown, wrote her own version of the ghost story “A Christmas Carol.” Titled Christmas Karma, the 65-year-old Londoner has created a lively, sparkling musical starring The Big Bang Theory’s Kunal Nayyar as Mr Sood – a modern-day curmudgeon – alongside Eva Longoria, Billy Porter and Boy George as the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future. The rest of the cast is stacked like ornaments on a Norwegian spruce, with Hugh Bonneville, Danny Dyer and Pixie Lott illuminating the proceedings.

In the kind of coincidence that Dickens relished, the film’s director turns on the television news to find inspiration for the miser who saps the joy from everyone around him. “There is an interesting phenomenon of Asians in the Conservative Party, who have been empowered by a hard-right stance,” says Chadha. “In a way, they want to be accepted more – and that’s what the miser does. He thinks that money will give him status and protect him. People ask me to come and support them, and I tell them: ‘No, I can’t. “Even though you’re an Asian woman and I’m an Asian woman, it stops there.”

It makes you wonder whether these politicians, whom Chadha does not mention by name, have actually seen any of her eight feature films, which have been gently – and sometimes feistily – dismantling stereotypes since 1993. “My stories are that we all have diverse cultural leanings and draw strength from different things,” she says.

Born in Kenya to Indian Sikh parents, Chadha was two when civil unrest prompted the family to move to Britain in the 1960s. “I’ve never lived in India, so Southall is my hometown,” she says of the enclave of west London, where she has witnessed the myriad viewpoints tearing apart the so-called Asian community. This would feed into her films: her debut, Baggy on the Beach – about a women’s outing to Blackpool – sees day-trippers clashing over what constitutes “respectable behaviour”. In the Viceroy’s household, the Hindu, Muslim and Sikh workers were divided along political as much as religious lines. In “Blinded By the Light,” as in her most famous film, “Bend It Like Beckham,” the central conflict is not East versus West, but parents and their children.

The long entanglement between Britain and India shapes the way Chadians think about identity today. “My story does not begin in contemporary London; it begins hundreds of years ago when Queen Elizabeth I granted the East India Company a monopoly to go into India, where British immigrants began the economic plunder that fueled industrial Britain – which speaks to the truth about that part of British identity shaped by the diaspora.”

Thus, having Asians at the forefront in adaptations of It’s a Wonderful Life, Pride and Prejudice, and now Dickens seems entirely natural: “Seeing a character you wouldn’t expect in that setting means opening up the world — and that story — in new ways.”

On an overcast summer’s day, I visited the Karma Christmas set, located in a picturesque street in Camden Town, north London, and witnessed the pivotal moment when Scrooge – or Sood – glimpsed the Cratchits’ Christmas table and heard what sickly little Tim was thinking. What Dickens’s prose never takes into account is this: the ghost of a gay African-American Christmas present in a sparkling emerald three-piece suit; Bob Cratchit (Leo Sutter) leads his wife Mary (Pixy Lott) in a guitar-led song; A director crouched on a narrow staircase, his eyes moving between the screen and the chaos. “This scene was difficult for Kunal,” she said when we spoke later. “You can’t get Sud to relent too soon. One misplaced smile at the end of the line can ruin the trip.”

Capturing the right mood is what drives the filmmaker, especially in today’s divided Britain. It is widely believed today that Dickens suffered from bipolar disorder and would have been “destroyed by the disparity between rich and poor,” she explains. “He’s trying to figure out why people can be so mean and selfish.” While editing the film, she was struck by a line the Ghost of Christmas Present asks: “Is one CEO worth a thousand Tim Cratchits?” Although it wasn’t meant to be a direct reference, “I thought people would assume I meant Elon Musk and the rise of the world.” [tech] “CEOs,” she says.

Assembling a cast of this size might be like Christmas for most British filmmakers, but Chadha’s global status has actors dreaming up ways to catch her attention. Eva Longoria invited her to host a screening of Flamin’ Hot, her directorial debut. At dinner, the Desperate Housewives star told Chadha she loved working with her, and Chadha told her about Christmas karma. Longoria was adamant that she must be a ghost. “I’m Mexican — we have ghosts,” she said. Day of the Dead. Hello?” Chadha says it was a lightbulb moment; she went home, rewrote the part, and found a British mariachi band to back her up.

The focus in Chadha’s films – and in the way she acts off camera – is always on fun, which is perhaps why the British film industry underestimates her. In the past 30 years, Steve McQueen, as a British director of colour, has been the only one who has been consistent or successful. Bend It Like Beckham has been released in every country in the world. “Even North Korea,” she chimes in. However, like Nancy Meyers in the US – another filmmaker who makes popular films centered around women – she often finds herself unappreciated and condescended to.

“Whatever they see me as, I don’t see myself as that,” Chadha says of British film executives. “The amount of money I have made for the British film industry is enormous. People want me to make heart-rending films about the suffering of Asian women and racism. I can make painful political films, but who will watch them? People who read sight and sound? Another reason my films are not taken seriously is that people don’t appreciate women. I show the world from a female perspective – and women come to me in tears, saying that my films will mean a lot to them when they grow up.”

Despite all the talk about equality, she believes the British film industry still has a race problem. “If you put a person of color in the lead role in a British film, 90% of the industry backs down,” she says. “What the industry doesn’t feel comfortable with is me making a movie like Christmas Karma — with a really diverse cast and catchy songs — when they think, on paper, it shouldn’t work.”

Her influence extends far beyond her films. “I had a big role in getting the tax break [for films] “It increased,” she says. “On the day of filming in Downing Street, Rishi Sunak said he wouldn’t do it – so I got up and gave this passionate speech. And at the end, he said: ‘You know what, I want to help Gurinder and people like Gurinder’. And he did. After that, people looked at me differently. Producer Andy Paterson is still saying: ‘Oh my God, that speech.'” When we spoke, she was on her way to India as part of a trade mission aimed at strengthening Britain’s relations with the country.

Is the world that Chadha depicts in her films under threat from the rise of the Reform movement in the UK, with its slogan that immigration is out of control, British culture is eroding, and the country is hostage to vigilantism? She rejects this idea. “Reform is a minority, and we have to remember that,” she says. “While I understand the idea of ​​trying to protect your cultural identity, there is no room for hatred or racism from anyone, on any side, of any color.”

Rather, she sees the climate as an opportunity for her diaspora-focused films. “There are enough people who are unhappy with what’s going on politically who will find the film a soothing balm,” she says. “One of the reasons Bend It Like Beckham was so popular is because it was released after 9/11. The world was in shock and unsure where to go – and then along came this sweet, innocent film that celebrates different cultures.” It sent the Internet into raptures recently by announcing that it is working on a sequel to one of its most beloved football films. “With the rise of women’s football, I was convinced to revisit the story and imagine what they would all do today,” she jokes.

Its creative team already includes US star consultant and former Chelsea Women’s manager Emma Hayes. “We went for curry the other day – she’s from Camden, where I live,” Chadha recalls. “It started with her encouraging me when we first met, saying she was Keira Knightley, and then she cried her eyes out when the film ended. Now I talk to her about the business side of football, the difficulties and successes she has had. I am doing my best.

“He’s so loved and I don’t want to do anything old,” she adds. “Unless I have something to say, I won’t say it.”

Christmas Karma is in cinemas in the UK from November 14.