The Lunchbox

 

Totally flummoxed by the housefuls of such an offbeat festival movie…

Not sure whether the audience taste has come of age or the “Oscar Hopeful” marketing strategy is creating buzz or the movie is really entertaining!!! I remember Dhobi Ghat being utterly scrapped and Ship of Theseus catching the attention of only a specific segment of society. Then what is the stark difference between Lunchbox and other two? I am absolutely clueless in understanding the choice of Janta and finding it very challenging to ascertain the common factor among the number producing movies. Nevertheless, the movie is grossing like any other commercial, star-studded extravaganza. Looks like Karan Johar (one of the producer) has mastered the number cracking formula. 

The movie is a piece of life of three commoners, struggling with their own incompleteness. They cross each other’s paths and try to fill the emptiness of their own life via serving other. Illa (Nimrat Kaur) is housewife trying to re-establish the charm in her troubled married life by winning the heart of her husband through stomach. Sajan Fernandez (Irfaan Khan) is a typical bureaucratic babu in some government office who is taking an early retirement to settle in a small town to catch up with his life after his wife’s demise. He has been an impeccable worker for past 35 years but at the time of leaving the job he is finding it painful to part away with his valuable knowledge with the new entrant Shaikh (Nawazuddin Siddiqui).  Shaikh is an orphan trying to settle in India to consummate his Live In relationship with his eloped Girlfriend by marrying her. These three try to fill the void of each others lives by being lover, guardian, Guru, friend, partner etc.

But interestingly there are couple of side characters who are also facing emptiness in their life and the director “Ritesh Batra” tries to establish parallel between the stories to influence the protagonists. E.g. the upstairs Aunty’s chirpiness and positive attitude towards life in spite of dealing with the coma of her husband encourages Illa to relish her life by having an analogous relationship with Sajan through letters. She gets small bursts of pleasure through the letters even though she is being reminded of her guilt by the constant staring eyes of her daughter. 

Ritesh Batra is exceptionally fantastic in illustrating the nuances of brutality of life and contentment of love. The actors are out of the world, undoubtedly. Irfaan has comeback after a pathetic portrayal of Raja Bhaiya in Saheb Biwi aur Gansgter returns. Nimrat is impeccable in capturing the emotions of a housewife who is going through a failed marriage and stuck between the feelings of love, hatred, anger, compassion, guilt and sense of responsibility. Nawaz is awesome but looks repetitive. He must come out of these forlorn – powerless type of characters. I found sheikh as an extension of Purandar of Bombay Talkies. 

Story and screenplay is stunning, perfectly narrated by the director. More than dialogues which are mostly letters, emotions through acting are given preference and the lenses captures every bit of it perfectly. Movie is absolutely a delight to watch. 

As usual when you come out of theater and everyone is giving their enlightened comment on the movie, I overheard some people saying, “Ending was unpredictable but it is ok, movie was good.” And I observed that people have made peace with such weird endings and then I remembered the day when I was coming out of “Dil Se” and people just bashed up a flawlessly sensible ending.