The Lunch Box

Synopsis: In an attempt to spice up her marriage, Ila (Nimrat Kaur) uses the Dabbawallahs, Mumbai’s famously efficient lunchbox delivery system, to send her husband a special lunch. But the lunchbox is delivered to Saajan (Irrfan Khan) by mistake. Through a series of notes delivered back and forth via the lunchbox,  Ila and the much older Saajan  slowly get to know each other. As their relationship develops, they share their loneliness and dissatisfaction with life, eventually finding hope and a new sense of self through their correspondence. But will this fantasy they share bring them new happiness or will it bring them undone?

‘The wrong train might get you to the right station’. This line is spoken more than once in Ritesh Batra’s first feature film, The Lunch Box, and it’s an idea that resonates throughout this charming, romantic, touching tale.

There are so many things to recommend this film, not least of which is the fact that it isn’t a Bollywood movie. Not that I have anything against Bollywood, but it’s refreshing and maybe a little unusual to see an Indian film that depicts life in a big city like Mumbai without the need to break into song and dance or flights of fantasy.  As Batra has pointed out, it’s hard to make what he calls an ‘off-Bollywood’ film in India, because there’s so little domestic audience for it. He’s hoping this film can change that.

And maybe it will. The Lunch Box is a simple, gentle, bittersweet, film that uses a quintessentially Indian phenomenon – the Mumbai Lunch Box delivery service – to explore the universal ideas of love, aging, intimacy and the desire in all of us to find relationships that make us more of who we are rather than less. The mix-up that brings Ila and Saajan into contact with each other forces them to confront some difficult truths about their lives as their romance (it’s not really an affair) blossoms. It’s a little reminiscent of David Jones’ 1987 film, 84 Charing Cross Rd in that the relationship between Ila and Saajan is conducted almost entirely by correspondence. I say almost, because, in addition to the notes inside the lunch box, is the exquisite and lovingly prepared food and that plays no small part in bringing the two together.

Added into this mix is Shaikh (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) a cheerfully eager but unqualified clerk whom Saajan must train to take over from him when he retires. His pathos and comic timing serves as a foil to Saajan’s precise and staid character. The three main characters, each in need of something the other can give them, form the heart of this beautifully written and carefully observed story. Their performances are excellent as are the supporting roles that flesh out their respective worlds. In particular, Bharati Achrekar is wonderful as the voice of Mrs Deshpande who lives in the apartment above Ila. We never actually see her but her character is a gem defined only by her commentary shouted from an upstairs flat. It’s just one of the many delightful devices in a film that is as funny as it is melancholy and thoughtful.

In lesser hands, The Lunch Box could easily have been twee and mawkish, but Batra’s subtle, confident touch keeps this film almost always at perfect pitch. He deftly handles the frequent use of voice-over that accompanies each of the letters so that the film gains from these scenes rather than suffers. And as for the ending? I loved it as much as the rest of the film.

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