They say only one in six million goes missing. The Mumbai lunch delivery system involves a courier taking a cooked lunch from home and delivering it to a destination across the city, right to the recipient's desk, before collecting it again and bringing it back. Bikes, trams, trains and other modes of transport are used as the box is handed from courier to courier. That's every day. One in six million uncounted for. That's insane.
The one that goes missing is the basis for Ritesh Batra's utterly charming The Lunchbox. Ila's (Kaur) cooked lunch was destined for her husband (Vaid) but somehow has ended up on the desk of Saajan (Khan), a grumpy widower preparing to take early retirement. The meal is a delight, but when Ila realises that her meal didn't reach her husband, she leaves a note in the next day's lunchbox, secretly hoping another mistake is made. It does and Saajan and writes back - a correspondence that grows into friendship and then something more...
Oddly this wasn't India's submission for Best Foreign Language Film at this year's Oscars. Maybe it’s too soft, too nice. Maybe The Good Road, which was submitted (but not shortlisted) is fantastic but it's hard to see what would better this. The Lunchbox is an absolute joy, a touching and funny romantic drama that will warm the cockles. And the ambiguous ending will tantalise. It's about connection, about meaning something to someone in a world of work, phones, trains, people and work. A Brief Encounter for this generation.
Comic relief comes in the shape of the super-enthusiastic Shaikh (a delightful Siddiqui), Saajan's replacement whom he's reluctant to train in. The ever-smiling enthusiast proves to be more than just a bootlick, though. The crumbling marriage of Ila and husband Rajeev (Vaid) is the only bum note; Batra reckons that he will lose the audience's sympathy for Ila and goes about justifying her feelings in the easiest way possible.
As good as Kaur and Siddiqui are, Khan (Slumdog Millionaire, Life of Pi) is in another class altogether. He lets his eyes do everything – allowing us to know what he's thinking, but can also use them to become a closed book. Betra's camera gives him time to do that, staying on his world weary face for stretches. Watching him subtly turn from cold and detached to something more approachable is a delight.