Saturday, September 21, 2013
The Lunchbox
Khatta Meetha Teekha
Ritesh
Batra’s debut feature is a fantasy come true, but done in a sweet, simple style
that could make the viewer believe little miracles are possible.
Otherwise, what is the likelihood of two people connecting across the
multitudes of Mumbai? Social networking has made it possible, but
fairytales do not exist in the prosaic world of cell phones and computers. The
absence, or fallback, on these tools, makes The
Lunchbox exist in a timeless universe, even though it is rooted in Mumbai.
The
‘letters exchanged between strangers’ plot has been used often in movies, but
Batra imbues it with a melancholy that is deliciously appealing.
Cooking
up tasty food to pack in the dabba for her aloof husband is Ila (Nimrat
Kaur), whose only support in her lonely life is her upstairs neighbour (the
voice of Bharati Achrekar), who directs her from the kitchen window. By a
situation imagined by Batra (and not likely to happen), the lunchbox reaches
the desk of crusty old widower Mr Fernandes (Irrfan Khan), who works in a
government office at a boring job, in a deadening bus-train-walk routine, and
back to a solitary existence in a decrepit Bandra bungalow.
Now a dabbawala could perhaps make a mistake once,
not every day, but you have to suspend disbelief. The two start exchanging
notes through the dabba, which grow into long exchanges of
confidences. It’s the stranger on the train syndrome—people say anything to a
fellow passenger, sure in the knowledge that they will never meet again.
In a
clichéd love story, the plot would work towards getting them together. Here,
Batra slowly builds on the small changes in their lives that this daily
unburdening of angst brings about. Fernandes actually makes friends with
his annoyingly chirpy colleague Aslam (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), Ila starts to hope
and dream of a better life.
There
are a few minor glitches, like the husband being a cold fish with no
explanation. Or Ila’s daughter looking wide-eyed and terrified all the
time. Why the needless digression to the tragedy in Ila’s maternal
home—dead brother, terminally ill father, beleaguered mother (Lillete Dubey
miscast)? Fernandes perhaps chooses his solitude, but is it possible for a
woman in Mumbai to have no friends or no interactions with anyone? Two
women in the story are stoically looking after disabled husbands, Ila is
desperately trying to woo back hers and the daughter looks like she is headed
for similar victimhood.
Still,
the film holds out the possibility of romance—not necessarily of the happily
ever after kind. And the performances are brilliant. Irrfan Khan could have
worked on his accent, but his expressions are priceless; Nimrat Kaur makes an
excellent debut, and Nawazuddin Siddiqui brings cheer every time he appears
with a “Helllllo Siiiiirrrr.”
If
audiences don’t give this one a chance, they will doom themselves to bad
Bollywood films forever.
Labels: Cinemaah
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