If you think that Bollywood movies were all about people singing Hindustan songs and dancing, you'd better start to look for more recent ones. For example, The Lunchbox (2014), this movie was not in that direction. Instead, this movie digs deep into the drama--not the melodramatic, but a good one. I was stunned yet fascinated. This movie is really good!
Just an illustration. Photo by Saksham Gangwar on Unsplash
The story is simple: There is a neglected housewife, her name is Ila (Nimrat Kaur), she is good at cooking, one her main daily activity is to send lunch to her husband in the office. In this film, we can see the montage of food delivery system from home to office through the dabbawala service. The dabbawalas is a lunchbox delivery system that delivers hot lunches from homes and restaurants to people at work in India, especially in Mumbai.
>Just to give some context. Here is how the dabbawalas system work. Their success rate is amazing: 99.9%!Unfortunately, that 0,1% failure happened for Ila. Her husband never gets his lunchbox. That lunchbox mistakenly comes to the table of Mr. Sanjaar Fernandes (Irrfan Khan), an old and unfriendly accountant. But from this small error, the romance begins. Sanjaar brief notes of thanks for the delicious food begin a correspondence that quickly evolves from the exchange of pleasantries to the sharing of confidences.
With the medium of handwritten letters they put in the lunch box, these two strangers were talking to each other, getting more intimate, day by day. This messaging method surely adds the classic feeling to the movie, since these two persons seem not willing to use any internet-based communication.
The Lunchbox is slow film, the plot is smooth and has a measured prose to reveal the complexities of the story. How Ila is not happy with her family, how her ill father is helpless, how the wise neighbor (The aunty) motivates her to take real actions. By the way, these two characters: Dad and the aunty are quite mysterious because we never had the chance to looked at their face :P
How about the journey of Sanjaar, the old and introvert accountant? Well, he is a total loner. Since the death of his wife, Sanjaar has buried himself in the boring routines of life. He is disliked by his colleagues, he even disliked by the children around his house. But from his narrative, we will listen to the stories about the chaos yet beautiful city, about family, colleagues, life, all with calm tones and far from preaching.
The story becomes intense when finally Ila and Sanjar decided to meet. Of course, there was a surprise in this plot point, but as this movie is slow-paced, even a surprise was delivered by certain calmness.
I must say the actings are good. Both actors provide convincing performances. Moreover, for me as a citizen of Jakarta, Sanjaar's character is easily relatable. He was an ordinary working class, hanging on the train, on a city bus, going to work, sometimes riding a three-wheeler bajaj, occasionally taking a cab. If he had finished his dinner, he smoked on the porch while looking at his neighbor's houses. But I'm a bit uneasy to see Ila being shown as a woman who is only live in the domestic territory.
The idea of two lonely souls connecting in a vast metropolitan and remaining strangers even as their intimacy grows is not new at all. But this is a charming movie. Just like a great photography, this movie photographed human being as a focus, with a beautiful city and the threatening changes as the setting. The Lunchbox with all its simplicity and slowness, actually it captured a moment of rapid change of Mumbai, India. Very well done.
