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The Lunchbox

Posted on November 2, 2014July 17, 2020 by Village Vidiot

  “The Lunchbox,” November 1-2, 2014 (2013), DVD.    We both enjoyed this lovely Indian/indie film written, produced and directed by Ritesh Batra that reminds me quite a bit of “Lost in Translation” a real nineteenth-century feel to parts of it, especially those surrounding the written exchanges. It follows the evolving, May-December connection between Ila (Nimrat Kaur), an ignored young housewife, and Saajan (Irfan Khan), a standoffish, soon to retire government accountant. They begin to write back and forth and establish a real connection when the lunchbox she sent via Mumbai’s famed lunchbox delivery system gets misdirected. He comes to life again through this and the training of his replacement, Shaikh, a young man as outgoing as he is walled off. There’s nothing treacly about this one. Instead it displays a lovely understatement of the emotions as it considers the varieties and pain of loneliness and the tension of age, love, and loss. All the acting, including some minor bits, is consistently wonderful. For a helpful exposition on the film, I strongly recommend the director’s commentary on the DVD

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