Wondering how to begin writing about this review of a movie, where all thoughts are still lingering on poignant moments of the movie that cannot be branded to a particular genre. How would you represent a meaning of matured love relationship and its facet in our present time. The answers are well depicted in a movie called “The Lunch box”.
To understand the distressful of a wife towards her astray relationship and loneliness of a widower are some things to look for in this amazing portrayal of a character. Saajan played by irfan khan is a widower and about to get retired from work. Ila played by namrat kaur is a neglected housewife who is trying to win her husband’s attention by cooking a variety of foods. It happens that the lunchbox gets delivered to saajan instead and that’s how the interaction starts between them via an exchange of letters through the lunch box. There is this unseen neighbor played by bharati achrekar who only lend her voice whenever Ila shares about her dabba being delivered to the wrong person or getting tips about cooking is somewhat artistically calibrated.
What stands out is the growing oneness without indulging in too many nuances of external turmoils. For example, after knowing the lunch box is going to the wrong place, Ila starts writing to saajan about how she has prepared her husband favorite food and then pours her character into the letter is somewhat appealing. Not to forget the main ingredient will of course be the mouthwatering foods that Ila prepares. Coming to saajan his loneliness is evident from his face of staring into a neighbor’s house during dinner time and enthusiasm for his new found taste bud is worth to watch for.
There are other portrayal such as saajan’s boss assigning a new comer sheikh played by nawazuddin siddqui to get trained under saajan. Nawazuddin is huge in this character, he is lively throughout. There is this incidence when he does not come on time, the way he informs about his orphanage root turns saajan’s attitude towards him. Being a loner himself can make out the feeling on the sheikh’s disparity of work. Similarly, when saajan offers ila’s food to the sheikh and his reactions are mind blowing.
Again, there comes a time when Saajan criticize Ila about the taste of foods and its detail are moments to live for. Especially when Ila smells her husband’s affair and discuss to Saajan and their developing mutualism is an eye opener to many of today’s relationship problems. On this track, the dabbawalla’s life is touched upon by not getting carried away, kudos to the cinematography and the background noise of Mumbai life that is nicely articulated. Feelings of age and the fear of rejection is bridged well in the Saajan’s characterization.
Overall ” The lunchbox ” is a matured menu with simple theme, effective characters and hungriness of food. Ritesh batra has made a movie that is challenging to a mainstream media. Whatever may be the public view on the movie, to me the aubergine curry that Ila made is calling me to try out.
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