The Lunchbox

The Impact

'The Lunchbox' is a movie released back in 2013 starring Irfan Khan and Nimrat Kaur as the main leads. I was quite young at that point in time, but i was very fond of movies ever since then and so I watched 'The Lunch Box' when it was airing on televisions because why not a new movie without any fancy trailer and a unique title, but as time would have it the narrow mind that I had back then not able to grasp the essence of the story because my brain was structured around the idea that movies are supposed to be either a romantic comedy or an action movie and as 'The Lunch Box' did not fit any of those two criteria I felt that the movie was a hate crime towards cinema. 

But as destiny would have it, as I grew older, I grew closer to cinema, especially to Western Cinema, as I watched the likes of 'Se7en', 'The Godfather', 'Shutter Island', 'Fight Club', 'The Devil's Advocate', and many more but as I watched these movies I always felt something was missing and something I see in my daily life but never in movies and that was the sense belonging. I greatly enjoyed the western movies that I mentioned above, but I felt that I did not belong in any of these movies; neither did the characters feel like the people I knew, nor did the places feel like the ones I already knew. 

And so, to seek a sense of belonging started to take a deep dive into indian cinema to find movies that were not mass movies made to lure people in to earn, but rather movies that were made to tell a story, and so I binged many indian movies such as 'Udaan', 'Dev D', 'haider' and many more. While I was exploring the indian cinema, I came across a familiar name, 'The Lunchbox', and so I erased all my prior views I had on it, and gave it a try.

During the lockdown of 2020, I rewatched 'The Lunchbox', and after I rewatched it, I felt how foolish I was to ignore such a movie, even though I always craved for such a movie, It was a movie that gave me a sense of belonging along with philosophical depth..

The Review

The story of the movie itself is very unique in a way, as it shows two different individuals with completely different lifestyles, Saajan Fernandes, who is an old, widowed man with no immediate family and has given up on his life as a whole, and is just trying to survive until he retires, and to his opposite Ila a young woman with a daughter and a husband trying to brighten up her life, but eventhough their lives are different, they both suffer from the same issue loneliness.

The two main characters in the story, Ila and Saajan, their lives are like two sides of the same coin, opposite yet the same. Both characters have their own way of coping with the problem. Ila, who tries to solve the problem by putting in efforts to minimize the distance between her and her husband, whereas Saajan, on the other hand, tries to ignore the issue and embraces the loneliness.

In my opinion, the movie does a great job of showing the parallels between two polar opposites; everything in the story suggests that the two characters are opposites, yet they are similar at the same time. I will write out my observations below regarding the difference between the characters

My Observations 

1. Ila is married with a child, and Saajan is a widow with no children.

2. Ila is a housewife, and Saajan has a job.

3. Ila's letters are written in Hindi, and Saajan wrote in English.

4. Ila had friendly relations with her neighbour, and Saajan did not. 

5. Ila was young, and Saajan was an old man

These were the few I noticed.

As the famous saying goes, nothing is perfect, and 'The Lunchbox' is no exception to this rule. The movie itself had flaws too, like the pacing was off, or the characters not meeting each other, but the only flaw that I think could have been better was the ending. When I rewatched it, I wasn't really a fan of the open ending, but nowadays, after watching 'Andhadhun', 'Inception', and many more, I have become more accepting of open endings. But still, the ending of  'The Lunchbox' left a hollow hole in my heart.

The Conclusion

The movie in its truest form is a masterpiece, even with flaws, it is a story that has depth and is thought-provoking, which will be relevant even 50 years from now, and so if you have the chance, give it a go, it will make your 1 hour 40 minutes worth it.

I would give it an 8 out of 10