Lunchbox delivers, saves the day for India

Debutant Ritesh Batra’s The Lunchbox, which was screened in Cannes Critics Week on Sunday, is far and away the best contemporary Indian film on show on the Croisette this year.

For those that have tired of the depredations of trigger-happy gangsters and the cacophony of cuss words in the so-called new Mumbai cinema and are baffled by Cannes’ lopsided take on what constitutes Indian films today, The Lunchbox is a welcome departure from the norm.

The film is peopled by believable and endearing characters that you and I might actually encounter in an everyday setting in the city of Mumbai. Batra captures the urban landscape in all its variety without letting the images get the better of the emotions.

Indeed, the best thing about the film is that director Batra is not afraid of ordinariness. In fact, he celebrates it whole-heartedly and, in the bargain, comes up with an acute study of urban loneliness that makes its point without the aid of gratuitous gimmicks.

It is essentially the story of three individuals – Saajan Fernandes, a sullen government accountant who is a month away from superannuation; Ila, a spirited young housewife trapped in a loveless marriage; and a loner, Aslam Sheikh, who joins the former’s department as a future replacement.

The Lunchbox is a film that has clearly emerged straight from the heart. Therefore, even though the central trigger of the narrative – a meal dabba delivered to the wrong address – might call for a willing suspension of disbelief, the human core of the drama, always restrained and pointed, carries the film through.

The writing is precise and the characters, both the major and minor ones, are well etched. The deeply felt film is about a quest for happiness and emotional rejuvenation. The housewife and the accountant begin a relationship through the means of notes exchanged via the lunchbox. They do not see each other but soon find themselves sharing their innermost thoughts, desires, dreams and memories with each.

The Lunchbox provides Irrfan Khan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui the perfect stage to pit their skills against each other – the histrionic duet is a delightfully subdued affair and, therefore, that much more powerful.

The real revelation in The Lunchbox is Nimrat Kaur (last seen in Peddlers, screened in the same parallel section in Cannes last year). She invests warmth and humour in the lonely housewife who seeks to use her culinary abilities to win her disinterested husband over but finds an unanticipated escape route.

The Lunchbox, described by Batra as “a small film with an army of producers”, is truly fresh and delivers food for the soul.