LUNCHBOX !!
Lunchbox is a marvellous movie!
Set on the backdrop of the world famous Lunchbox delivery system of Mumbai, it is a simple story of virtual love, which revolves around the unexpected mistake in the system, which rarely happens, where the Lunchbox reaches somewhere else, other than its meant destination.
The story is of an unhappy housewife, whose marriage seems to have reached a stage of stagnation, where the husband spends least time at home and expresses no interest in the wife and is probably having a love affair with someone else too. The wife decides to infuse some life in the dying marriage, by cooking some good food, on recipes taken from her neighbour friend, an elderly lady. The Aunty, who is only heard in the movie, and never seen, is a friend, confidante and guide of the housewife, and has been nursing and looking after a comatose husband for almost two decades. The reason for the bonding of the two ladies has been shown to be their loneliness, where the aunty is spending life with a comatose husband and the younger lady with a disinterested one!
By mistake the lunchbox reaches a widower, who works as an accountant in a government office, is reaching retirement and stays alone. He enjoys the food and while both realize the mistake of the lunchbox delivery, neither makes any attempt to rectify it and rather on the contrary, encourage it, to start a love story, expressed in monologues through short letters exchanged in the lunchbox, daily.
Both get attached, share their life, and he tries to advice her on ways to improve her married life, which she tries, but fails……….and finally they decide to meet, as the lady is seriously in love with the man. On the final day, the man has cold feet, and even though he goes to the decided venue of the meeting, he doesn’t meet her and later tells her, that keeping in view her marital status and their age difference; they should end the affair and lead their lives as it was, on their own. The lady doesn’t give up and traces his office with the help of the lunchbox delivery man, but on reaching their finds that the man has left his job and moved to his hometown.
Thrown in between the sequences is the story of the man’s junior, who is living in with the lady he loves, but even after eloping, does not get married till her parents give consent and then requests the man, his boss, to be his guardian at the wedding. The man is so smitten by their love that as his contribution for making it last forever, and to see then happy always, he takes premature retirement to create a vacancy for his junior to get a promotion and lead a happy and contended married life.
There is also a brief mention of the lady’s parents. Father suffering from cancer and mother struggling with his treatment in a state of poverty with no help coming forth from their son.
The story is good and so is the script but it is irritatingly dragging. The unacceptable slow pace, no songs, drab music, minimal background score make it dull and if just seen without sounds, looks like a documentary on the dabbas of Mumbai ! Irrfan and Nawajjudin have done justice to their roles as the man and his junior,with superb acting and displayed brilliant histrionic talents. The lady, a Marathi stage actress and newcomer to the big screen has justice too, to her role, and the aunty has made her presence well felt, in spite of being absent from the screen.Cant end without complimenting the excellent direction of the movie which has significantly contributed in bring out the message. Somewhere, the movie reminds you of the play, Ek thi Amita, which was reading of letters between a man and his lover.
The Movie is definitely worth a see, preferably with spouse, to understand the intricacies of married life, virtual friendships and aging………but one should be prepared to tolerate the dullness. Most Indians have not liked the movie, not because it lacks the entertainment factor, but because they are unable to accept seeing a woman walking out of marriage and that too for a man whom she doesn’t know or has met……………but then, we have to accept the fact, that one can often go to extremes just to run away from reality
Dr Sanjay kapoor, VSM