The Connected Hunger. Review on The Lunchbox

“Aaj maine pankha saaf kiya, suna tune- chalta hua pankha saaf kiya"

Auntie yells down to Ila- The Fan which she thinks hold her husband’s last breath, the one who has been in coma for last ten years.  And she instantly knows this is not what she wants from her life. Hanging onto a dead person, relationship, the drudgery of living in day in and day out with a person who is as good as dead.

For once the critical acclaim of the film preceded much before its release. Reason being one that It has Irrfan Khan and Nawazuddin and secondly the Film Festival release. The storyline is simple, does not go brouhaha about its packaging, and can be easily made out of its rushes. Two strangers fall in love out of a lunchbox. They have never known each other earlier, never met and its just a wrong delivery which lands up Ila’s(Nimrat Kaur) lunchbox(meant for her husband) on Saajan Fernandes’(Irrfan Khan) desk. Therein commences a simple story of mutual appreciation, trust, friendship and love.

There are times when the film literally speaks out of its frames. The times audience witnesses Fernandes standing in the balcony smoking, staring at a happy family across the road, trying to live the loneliness of the evening. The portion where Ila realizes that her husband is having an affair, washing the clothes with a look which says this is not the life I ordered.  An exchange between mother(Lilette Dubey) and Ila post her father’s death- “pehle sab kuch achcha tha, phir wo beemar pad gaye aur kuch saalon se mujhe ghin aane lagi thi”. Or for that matter auntie yelling out to Ila “tere uncle ke diaper change kar rahee thi”.

Such is the brilliance of cinema that despite being a love story and having strong protagonists like Irrfan and Nawazuddin- the movie is just about women, men perhaps too. But about Women with their day-in and day-out struggles, living in the hope of getting life back in their relationships. Every character is carved out from the pain of living a human life- searching for a human bond, loneliness throbbing with every heart beat. And still despite its flow there is no scene where the script offers pessimism or lives the drudgery of the characters.  How does one achieve such freshness of story-telling without even one violent scene, obscenity- touching the deep raw nerve,  is commendable.

Before this I had no clue about Ritesh Batra or his work, “The Lunchbox” says all that I needed to know.Look out at the scene of the little girl playing with a soft toy which has not been cleaned for ages, the detailing and empathy of knowing his subject! The writer/director will definitely go places.

Take your kid along for this cinema for sure, they do need to understand the strength and beauty of relationships beyond lust, sex and vandalism.