Review of The Lunchbox (2013) by Alejandro E — 17 Mar 2014

In order to gain the attention of her husband Rajeev(Nakul Vaid), Ila(Nimrat Kaur) cooks an extra special lunch for him. Except he does not receive it. Instead, it ends up in the hands of Saajan(Irrfan Khan) who is taking early retirement in a month. He is so satisfied with his meal that he returns the lunchbox entirely wiped clean. When Ila realizes that it was not her husband who ate it, she writes a note to its mistaken but grateful recipient.

With a masterclass in underacting from Irrfan Khan, "The Lunchbox" is a movie about the simple pleasures in life that in its own way demonstrates that sometimes the simplest ideas are the best. Overall, the movie operates on the rhythms of daily life, unpredictable as they often are. But those are rapidly changing, as society speeds along, or at least tries to. Some of this is universal like the lack of communication even with modern means, but other concepts like Mumbai's horrific traffic are endemic to India.