NOT JUST A MOVIE REVIEW!!

THE LUNCHBOX – A BEAUTIFUL SLICE OF LIFE

When I came to know that The Lunchbox was going to release over here in Latur, I was literally over the moon as such (read sensible) movies usually don’t see the light of the day over here. I saw the movie on Friday itself as I was super excited about the movie since watching the trailer a couple of months back.

And it was not just a movie…. It was a beautiful experience. I came out of the movie hall smiling in a state of unadulterated happiness…. Nirmal Anand,   if I may say so.

The movie showed human emotions and relationships in the background of Mumbai city life in such a subtle and underscored way…. It was as if the characters were not just talking to each other but to me as well.

The acting by all the three lead characters… Irrfan, Nimrat Kaur and Nawazuddin Siddiqui is top notch and so natural… it’s as if we are observing our next door neighbours… or office colleagues.

But the highlight of the movie is that all three of them, especially Irrfan and Nimrat , express so much of their emotions through their eyes without saying anything and that is the best kind of acting there is. It is a rare treat to see such artistry by the actors and the cameraman in Indian movies these days.

The scenes and dialogues are humorous and witty with an expertly veiled sense of pathos in them. Especially the dialogue where Nawazuddin mentions something his mother told him even though he is an orphan since birth… I think that was the best dialogue of the movie.

And Above all it is the best depiction of my city of dreams I have seen in a long, long time… I was literally missing Mumbai while watching the movie.

The urchins singing in Local trains, hordes of office goers travelling to and from Churchgate station to their destinations via Oval and Cross Maidan, the passengers of jampacked BEST buses swinging along with the handles as the bus moves along, the quintessential autorickshaw/taxi driver complaining about the city traffic or just gossiping about a recent event, the painters on the pavements outside Mumbai University , the crowded yet relaxed atmposhere atmosphere of an Irani restaurant and the dabbawallahs carrying the ubiquitous tiffin boxes to their hungry destinations singing “Gyanba Tukaram” along the way.

Like Nawazuddin says in the trailer, “Aajkal koi letter kahan bhejta hai, sab email hi karte hain”, the film is an ode to small things and practices which are dying out in the humungous din of urbanization

The joy of writing letters to a person you never met (remember pen friends),

The bitter-sweet discussions with the neighbouring Aunty,

A friendly wave through the window to a neighbour living in the opposite building,

The magic of rewatching old DD TV shows(Yeh Jo hai Zindagi) and revisiting the memories we have attached to them,

The very act of stopping and staring around for a while.

The director has paid attention to such small details, as if he has taken a slice out of our day-to-day lives---

A housewife smelling her husband’s clothes before putting them in a washing machine,

A mother calling out to the autorickshaw driver “ bas ek minute ruko bhaiyya”, till her schoolgoing daughter descends the stairs ,

The murkiness of a bachelor’s bathroom( the steam on the mirror scene was a master shot),

The look and sense of true respect a junior has for a senior( Throughout the movie, Nawazuddin never sits in front of Irrfan in the office without his permission… hats off to the director and scriptwriter),

The honest venting of feelings by a wife a few hours after her husband’s death.

Some of the people I spoke to felt the ending was Incomplete… but I have different opinion. I think the ending spoke about the greatest of all human emotions… No..it’s not Love that I am talking about… but HOPE and that too not in a filmy manner but rather in a practical sense.

What options does a person have if he/she is in a difficult situation… either they compromise for the greater good or they fight and break away in the HOPE that they can have a better tomorrow( The Bhutan reference at the end… amazing!!). Inversely, it is this sense of Hope that can make you come back.

Ritesh Batra and team….I Bow to you….Three cheers for making such a beautiful movie and making me Happy and laugh and cry in the theatre after such a long time!!

P.S.— Go to the theatre on an empty stomach at your own risk… chances are the food you will eat in the interval will cost more than the movie ticket.. Hehe!!