is an exquisitely crafted gem of a film about the romance between a bored government file-pusher who's close to retiring and an equally bored and lonely Mumbai housewife that begins the day a lunchbox is delivered to the wrong person.
Acclaim for the film has been widespread, including at the Cannes Film Festival this year where it won the Critics Week Viewers Choice Award, along with a standing ovation. In India, critics lavished praise on the film for the way it works on several levels: as a love story, and also as a depiction of Mumbai's (who deliver millions of hot, home-cooked meals from the kitchens of housewives to the offices of their husbands every day without any mistake), and life in the sprawling and chaotic city.
follows the story of Saajan Fernandez (Irrfan Khan), a widower tired of life and unwilling to acknowledge that he is lonely after his wife's death. Every workday, the insurance claims supervisor gets a horrible mass-produced lunch delivered to his desk. But one afternoon, another man's lunch mistakenly ends up on his desk. Saajan is pleasantly surprised to find a lovingly cooked meal that is aromatic and delicious. The lunch was made by Ila (Nimrat Kaur) for her husband with special care in an attempt to put some spice back into their loveless marriage. Saajan devours her delicacies and returns the empty lunchbox.
When Ila realises the wrong person is eating her meals and has not even offered a note of thanks, she sends a sarcastic note in the tiered, steel tiffin box in which the lunches are delivered. He reads it and replies. The notes continue. In them, they begin sharing their feelings, hopes, and fears. And so a relationship begins.
Along with the relationship, debutant director Ritesh Batra portrays how life is lived amid Mumbai's congestion. Saajan talks sardonically about how, having spent a lifetime commuting vertically in the city's packed trains, he will be given a vertical grave for lack of space in the local graveyard.
With great artistry and magic, Batra lovingly portrays Mumbai, its torrential monsoon rainstorms, the overflowing commuter trains, its infinitely varied street life, the cricket played in the tiny spaces available to children, and of course, the tantalising Indian food that Ila prepares in her tiny flat.
"I have a lot of people telling me they leave the movie hungry, but I don't think it's because of the food but because of how they see Irrfan enjoying the food. That's what makes them hungry," Batra says.
