Review: The Lunchbox tells a story of unrequited love from India

REVIEW: A richly flavoured tale of misplaced meals and unrequited love from India, The Lunchbox is sure to satisfy your appetite.

A scene from the film The Lunchbox which will screen at the Cremorne Orpehum as part of the Sydney Film Festival

A RICHLY flavoured tale of misplaced meals and unrequited love from India, The Lunchbox is sure to satisfy the appetite of devotees of quality world cinema.

The plot initially centres on a mind-boggling system that keeps the workforce of India’s busiest city going strong.

Every day, a fleet of almost 10,000 delivery men known as “dabbawallahs” pick up meals from the kitchens of Mumbai housewives and ensure they land on the desks of their hungry husbands.

In spite of the wildly varying modes of transport used by the dabbawallahs — foot, bicycle, train and scooter — the arrangement is famed for its unerring efficiency.

A Harvard University study conducted in the late 1990s found that on average, only one in a half a million meals goes to the wrong address.

It therefore comes as little surprise that The Lunchbox soon becomes the story of one of those rare glitches in the system.

At the urging of her aunt upstairs, a lonely housewife named Ila (Nimrat Kaur, pictured) has started cooking a heartfelt lunchtime menu to reignite the interest of an inattentive husband.

Bewitched ... Irrfan Khan in a scene from the Indian film The Lunchbox.

However, the actual recipient turns out be Sajaan (Irrfan Khan), a gruff accountant who becomes rapidly bewitched by the feeling that has clearly been poured into the preparation of these delicacies.

In time, notes are exchanged along the culinary crossed wires, revealing the pair have much in common. Will they ever meet and dine as one?

What follows is a gentle, understated romantic drama that finds a delicious level of anxiety in the wait for a final answer. First-time filmmaker Ritesh Batra rejects the standard Bollywood format of something-for-everyone, and goes with an approach that is appreciably more layered
and textured.

The anchoring performance of Khan (well known to Australian audiences via his role as the police inspector in Slumdog Millionaire) is the perfect conduit to convey the subtle shifts of emotion and thought that come to define
the movie.

Though it does take a while for the quietly unpretentious charm of The Lunchbox to kick in, once a connection with the viewer is forged, it will not be broken.

Lovely stuff.

Originally published as Review: The Lunchbox tells a story of unrequited love from India