Keswick Film Club - The Lunchbox

Synopsis

Mumbai, today. Lunch delivery has been raised to an art form, with armies of 'dabbawallahs' organising the deliveries from home to office with machine-like precision...but what if they get it wrong? Writer/director Ritesh Batra has produced this bitter-sweet look at life in a city, where the everyday trials of commuting mix with the magic of an unplanned liaison based on one such mix up.

Ila is trying to rekindle her husband's love by cooking him an extra special lunchbox, but it ends up on Saajan's desk. They begin to swap chapatti-wrapped notes and a virtual friendship grows; in this Facebook world, will a simple Lunchbox bring them together?

This is an Indian romantic comedy, but it is not Hollywood (or Bollywood); as David Jenkins bluntly points out in Little White Lies - 'one will produce a delectable dish which leaves your tastebuds positively humming, while the other will deliver a noxious slurry...More than a tale of random hearts connecting through fast food delivery, this is a heartbreaking movie about things that won't and don't and can't go wrong, going seriously wrong'. Jenkins is impressed too by Irrfan Khan ('Life of Pi'), who plays Saajan - '(he) proves here that he may be one of the greatest living actors in the world right now'. Praise indeed.