The film is just a story about a man who is going to retire. He is aging. Due to a mistake in the lunchbox delivery system he gets the lunchbox from a woman who is trying to re-conquer her husband by cooking special lunches for him. An epistolary relation starts via the lunchbox: message to and message fro. Till a meeting becomes possible. But it is then the aging man discovers he has no right to entertain some illusion about that younger woman, nor nurture illusions in her about a rejuvenating love affair which is nothing but a compensation for her inability to have a relation with her own husband. And he has no right to flatter his ego with the idea that he might still be young, to the point of maybe not retiring after all.
The trailers were so appetizing! Who wouldn't have been hungry enough to watch one of the most awaited films around this time of the year? 'The Lunchbox' seems to have it all to be a good film: actors like Irrfan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui and the appeal of seeming like a well told story.
There are elements of lazy writing that the writer-director Ritesh Batra has chosen when one of the lead characters is looking for an outlet to convey her thoughts to the audience. Ila then communicates with a neighborhood Aunty (Bharati Acherekar) who is never seen on screen. Both these ladies seem to discuss everything that happens with each other the whole day. After a while, when you hear Nimrat Kaur's character say 'aunty' for the umpteenth time, you would burst into laughter.
Although the film, at times, seems slow-moving, one must give it a benefit of doubt because it wouldn't have been possible to display loneliness and to use quiet to portray disquiet in the characters' lives, each of whom has lost his soul running the hamster's wheel in Mumbai. Had its pace been any faster, the film would have lost all charm and would have been a soulless 45 minute film instead.
It is movies like these that keep my hopes alive in the otherwise gut churning regular Bollywood crap. It seems that the Renaissance Bollywood was going through a couple of years ago, where people were experimenting and coming out with more realistic movies, has died again. I blame this on Salman Khan's Dabangg. The Indian audience, of course, decided to regress and such movies barely see the light in India. We have to rely on the International audience to appreciate the art of Indian cinema.
Lunchbox is a different type of movie, a romantic movie (where lunchbox are the medium) as far as Indian styles are concerned. It is a special movie, not the greatest but definitely something. Is it worth Oscar notice? I dont think so. but this movie was something. I kinda like it. the Director has so many potential.
IMDB : 7.9/10
Rotten Tomatoes : 96%
Meta critics : 76%
Mine : 8/10
No comments:
Post a Comment