Firstly, as has been advised in other reviews, don’t go to see The Lunchbox hungry. If gentle romance, stories of the human heart and soul and stirring imagery of everyday life in Mumbai aren’t your cup of tea, then at least the food — tiffin upon tiffin stuffed with delicacies — will surely appeal, and certainly start tummies rumbling. After all, everyone’s gotta eat, right?
That’s the charm and message of Ritesh Batra’s 104-minute film, an ode to that old saying about the way to someone’s heart. Food and feelings are something anyone can understand.
But just as some meals are perfectly executed, filling and tasty, others can fail to deliver on flavour or substance.
With wonderful, subtle acting from all players in a tightly-edited film, The Lunchbox is the former — although the ending will certainly leave you wanting more, and that’s not a bad thing.
Widower Saajan is close to retirement, and everyday eats a lacklustre dabba, or lunchbox, from his local restaurant. One day, the quality suddenly goes through the roof, improved by the loving touch of Ila, a lonely housewife looking to win back her husband’s heart with lovingly crafted dishes sent everyday through Mumbai’s terrifyingly efficient dabbawala system. The hand-delivered lunchbox arrangement is so flawless, even Harvard has studied it, and yet... Ila’s lunchbox goes to Saajan, and Saajan’s dull cauliflower goes to Ila’s wayward husband. This small wrinkle in reality serves to showcase how the incredible dabba system actually is (and not, as other reviewers have implied, to insult it); it also allows the loveliest of romances to begin.
With their innermost thoughts shared in notes carried in the lunchbox, Ila and Saajan become close, despite never having met.
Irrfan Khan and Nimrat Kaur are simply glorious, pulling the viewer into their characters’ lives in an instant, while Batra immerses us in the mundane world of Mumbai — trains, cars, children playing football in the street, family dinners, a lonely man having a smoke on his balcony, a wedding. (Its middle-class focus may satisfy those who decried Slumdog Millionaire’s perspective on the city.)
An acting highlight is Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s aggravating co-worker, Shaikh, by turns lovable and irritating, a dream role for this fantastic character actor. Lillette Dubey makes a quick but memorable appearance as Ila’s mother, laughing through her tears in a scene that underscores how well Batra has treated the script — where there could be melodrama, he makes lemonade.