This is a
delightful movie, not exactly a rom-com but romantic with a large dose of
subtle realism. I had missed it during the London Film
Festival last October and only caught up when it went on
general release earlier this month. Set in the middle-class milieu
of Mumbai where the eponymous lunchbox or the tiffin-dabba is an integral
feature of daily life for thousands of the mega-city`s office workers, its
simple story line centres around the virtual relationship between the two
principal characters born of a chance mis-delivery of the lunchbox.
As the
film opens, we see Ila, a young married woman busily engaged in cooking a
deliciously sizzling lunch for her husband (in fact all the later sequences
involving preparation of meals are equally mouth-watering) and getting their
pre-teen daughter ready for school, while at the same time conducting a loud
off-line conversation with her older neighbour in the flat above through open
windows. Working to a fine time-line, she manages to see the
daughter safely down to her school transport, a scooter rickshaw, and to
put the lunchbox out for collection by the tiffin-carrier; only then can she
sigh a breath of relief!
Then follows
live footage of the tiffin-delivery system at work, made familiar to audiences
across the world by recent tv documentaries about this Mumbai phenomenon.
Next, the scene switches to a vast communal office layout, of the kind seen in
American movies of the forties and fifties, where rows of clerks, seated at
their desks, are seen engrossed in serious paperwork. One of them is
Saajan Fernandez, the recipient of Ila`s mis-sorted lunchbox. We learn
that he is single, a widower, nearing retirement after 35 years of
service. The lunch hall, separate from the work area, is where
Fernandez eats his surprise, but welcome, packed lunch.
The crux
of the plot is the two-way correspondence by handwritten notes tucked inside
the tiffin box that ensues between Ila and Fernandez (we only have her first
name, while he is referred to by his last throughout). They exchange
tit-bits about their past and present, the voids in their lives (she suspects
her husband of having an affair, he is concerned about his future after
retirement) and so it goes on, in the midst of other things happening around
them.
The
filmic equivalent of pen-pal communications between two people who have never
met is a familiar concept. The letter writing dialogue of the 1987
movie 84 Charing Cross Road that develops into a real life
post-WWII trans-Atlantic friendship between an American literary connoisseur
and a British book seller, gave way to the internet shenanigans of Meg
Ryan and Tom Hanks a decade later in You`ve Got Mail ! In Lunchbox,
Ila and Fernandez fall back on the old conventional format but the effect is
the same: they get drawn into a situation involving a sharing of confidences
and mutual support, even to the extent of wanting to meet each other face
to face.
Cinematic
hype does overshadow the other characters, but a constant
presence is that of an overly eager young recruit (Shaikh), whom Fernandez is
having to train to take over from him when he retired. After an initial
lack of enthusiasm bordering on dislike, he warms to Shaikh`s importuning
persistence and takes him under his wing. Shaikh provides a certain light
relief but also has a more central role than Ila`s husband and mother,
both of whom remain on the periphery, as does Shaikh`s fiancée, who
makes a brief appearance as a blushing bride in a marriage ceremony where
Fernandez is persuaded to be Shaikh`s surrogate guardian. Ila`s upstairs
neighbour with whom she has lively conversations however remains an
off-screen voice presence throughout.
The urban
metropolis of Mumbai - the vibrancy of the commuter train journeys, the street
life, the apartment complexes, the taxi rides, the domestic scenes of family
dining, the office culture – all that is well captured. Nimrat
Kaur as Ila is simply superb in terms of her dignified posture, resounding
articulation and shining beauty. Irrfan Khan, a seasoned actor (`The
Namesake`, `The Darjeeling Limited`), lives up to his credentials to give an
equally professional performance as Fernandez. Nawazud Siddiqui who
plays Shaikh too is not short of brilliance in his major supporting role.
He livens up an otherwise melancholic journey of his
mentor towards an unpredictable denouement. Ultimately,
each character is a lonesome figure, who has to negotiate everything that life
and living in the big city throws at them: Ila`s marriage has
turned sterile just as her distant mother becomes a wailing
widow; her daughter too is a singleton child of just one functioning
parent; Fernandez has nothing to look forward to in retirement; only
Shaikh - an orphan - with a zest for adventure, represents hope
and the future! Above all, it is the food that leaves a
lingering after taste.
On that
note, The Lunchbox makes an appetising outing!
RAMNIK SHAH
(c) 2014
(c) 2014
Surrey, England
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