Kurt R.A. Giambastiani

I am a sucker for epistolary movies. Throw in ethnic food and cookery, and you’ll have me on toast points.

The Lunchbox (2013) stars Irffan Khan and Nimrat Kaur, and is the first full-length feature by director Ritesh Batra (who also wrote the screenplay and produced the film). Western movie-goers might recognize Khan from movies such as Life of Pi, Slumdog Millionaire, and The Darjeeling Limited, but most of his work–as almost all his co-star Kaur’s work–has been in Indian cinema.

The story is set in Mumbai, a place of contradictions and juxtapositions between old and new, modern and old-school. Ila (Kaur) is a young housewife who cooks a lunch for her husband every day and sends it to him using the city’s arcane but incredibly efficient lunchbox delivery service. One day, however, the lunch she prepares goes astray, and is delivered instead to Saajan (Khan), a middle-aged widower who works at an insurance office. Ila quickly realizes that her husband didn’t get the lunch she prepared but can see that whoever did get it, enjoyed it, and so in the next day’s lunchbox, she includes a note.

Thus, a correspondence begins, filled with food, secrets, dreams, and hopes.

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