The Lunchbox (2013) is an Indian epistolary romantic film written and directed by Ritesh Batra. Saajan Fernandes ((Irrfan Khan) is a widower nearing retirement from his job as an accountant. Ila (Nimrat Kaur) is a young wife seeking her husband's (Nakul Vaid) attention and looking for ways to put romance back into her marriage, one of which is to cook delicious food for him.
Through a rare mix-up of the famous "dabbawalas" (a complicated system that picks up and delivers lunches from restaurants or homes to people at work) of Mumbai, the lunchbox Ila prepares gets delivered instead to Saajan.
Ila eventually realizes the mistake and with the advice of her neighbor aunty, writes a letter to Saajan about the mix-up and places it in the lunchbox (along with her husband's favorite meal) the next day.
A friendship is ignited between the two as they build a fantasy world together through notes in the lunchbox where they share memories and events of their own individual lives.
The idea of two lonely souls, islands of melancholy calm, connecting in a vast, modern metropolis, and remaining strangers even as their intimacy grows, makes for a charming movie, a feast for the eyes, or as The Guardian put it, "A quiet storm of banked emotions".
No comments:
Post a Comment