Irrfan Khan was an underrated movie star. Granted, he managed to bridge a gap between Hollywood blockbuster and Bollywood, yet his performances were still often overlooked and it is in this cutesy, innocent movie about love and friendship that Khan gave his greatest performance ever.
Directed by Ritesh Batra, The Lunchbox is a movie that revolves around India’s revelatory lunchbox system. ‘Dabbawala’, as it is referred to in India, is a lunch delivery system, where people at work can order hot lunches, either from home or from restaurants, and have them brought to them.
In this instance, something unheard of before, there is a mix-up. Ila (Nimrat Kaur) has made the perfect lunch for her husband, but it accidentally gets delivered to the workplace of Khan’s character, Saajan. Enjoying the lunch, Saajan returns the empty lunchbox and the two strike up a system of communication, by leaving notes in the lunchbox as it gets passed back and forth between the two of them.
The film dabbles in the question of ‘can you fall in love with someone you haven’t met’, but it isn’t the romance that is the heart of the film. It is Khan. Playing with subtleties and nuance, Khan portrays Saajan as a man who constantly carries a deep pain. He likes to keep himself to himself, something that becomes a bit of a hardship with the arrival of his new trainee, Shaikh (Nawazuddin Siddiqui).
Ila takes a slight backseat in the story, as Saajan has to handle the two new relationships in his life. His emotional opening up to Ila, allows him to let Shaikh into his life as his only friend, showing how this film is about more than just a romance. Khan delivers an enthralling performance - his best, in fact - in a tale that is just as much about friendship, as it is about love and romance.
Score: 80/100