Lunchbox Reviews - Page 8

Originally posted by: _JaGGaJasoos_

First time jasoos appreciating something on this forum..The Lunchbox team hats off to you all..such an outstanding movie n more outstanding acting by everyone..Irfan n Fazaloo I'm totally in awe of your acting.you guys deserve every award for acting not these so called lallu, lungi, tingu ,pichkari..Jasoos Giving this movie full marks..all pankhas Go n watch what is true cinema..👏

Was this Nimrat's debut movie?

I feel like watching this movie again.

Good actors are really good people: Ritesh Batra

Ritesh Batra, 34, has not just delivered a beautiful love story through 'The Lunchbox', his Mexican wife also delivered a beautiful daughter who was born just five days after he finished shooting, allowing him to make it to the delivery in Mexico in time. He likes to read and cook and loves to iron clothes as he finds it conducive to think being so mundane. TOI talks to him about his journey so far. Excerpts:

How did you become a filmmaker?
I am a Bandra boy born and brought up there. I studied at Sydenham College after which I went to the US to do my graduation in Economics, post which I started consulting with a firm on strategy and operations. Apart from the fact that my nana was a columnist for a newspaper in Lucknow due to which it always seemed to me that I could write, I had no connection to the film world whatsoever. My dad was in the merchant navy and my mom a housewife. But I always wanted to be a filmmaker and living in the US, I couldn't imagine myself doing my whole life what I was doing there.

After three years, I quit my job on a lark. I made a short film for my film school application and got into NYU film school. But I quit that too in a year and half. The main reason was that I was not feeling it as much. I wrote something and got into the Sundance Institute started by Robert Redford. They select eight projects in a year and really mentor them under Robert himself apart from other accomplished people. He is on set and it is a great and intense experience. After going through that experience, I decided to be on my own and started making short films and writing.

How did The Lunchbox come around?
In 2007, when I was young and had a lot more hair, I wanted to make a documentary on dabbawallas. I came down to Mumbai and embedded myself with them for a week in Malad, following them from Malad to Churchgate everyday with just them and me, without any cameras or notebooks. They became friends and would tell me little stories about the various houses they went to collect the dabbas from. For instance, how the mother-in-law is the boss in one house and how, in another, the madam makes them wait and how in one house, another madam tries new dishes everyday. I became really interested in those little stories. I stopped making the documentary and started writing this. I would sit down and write constantly and finally finished writing it in 2011. I had made a short film in Cairo called Cafe Regular, Cairo that ARTE, a French broadcaster, saw and bought.

That film travelled a lot and actually allowed me to make 'The Lunchbox' as they not only financed a part of it but also while I was in Cairo making it, I wrote the first draft of 'The Lunchbox'. It has won a lot of accolades and awards internationally and Sony has bought the rights of the film in the US. I believe 'The Lunchbox' is an international film that will work in India as it's an Indian story with Indian characters and conflicts.

What is it like to be trained by Robert Redford? He would come on the set and have dinner with us. He is a very shy and humble person and really interested in the process and the nitty-gritty of it. He is an actor. Good actors are also good directors. He would step in and whisper in my ear. The director is everyone's barometer and needs to keep a track of the emotional graph of the actors. He being an actor himself, taught me how to respect an actor's craft and how to create an environment conducive for them to perform.

Let's talk about your actors in the film? The most important vessel on the set you have is the actor as he is the one through whom your story is being communicated. I am always interested in making myself better at working with actors. Even in The Lunchbox, I wanted to spend time with the actors and did not want to use tricks learnt from film school. Irrfan was lovely. He came on board really quickly after reading the script only once. I feel good actors are really good people as it is a combination of intelligence and honesty. You cannot lie to them as they are extremely intelligent. All three " Irrfan, Nawaz and Nimrat " are really intelligent and honest. Coming from theatre, Nimrat puts in the time required to prepare. She really got into it. Four months before the shoot, we rented out that apartment in Malad. She and her husband in the movie did it up, lived there and cooked in that kitchen. He is a generous actor as he is just a marginal actor in the film but still put in so much for the role. With Nawaz, I wanted to tap into his spontaneity. I know he is intelligent and when he gets into something or catches the sur as they say, he is in the moment and I really wanted to take advantage of that. He brought so much to the part.

You left your job, joined film school, left that and joined another institute. Did your choices worry your parents? Many times. My most difficult time was when I was in the US trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life and abandon my job and go to school again. It was incredibly expensive but it did not seem the right place for me. I also took a gap in between. Before I got into the Sundance lab, it was a no man's land and was surviving from my savings. My wife is from Mexico and we knew each other right from college days. So it was a time when you should be settling down but I was instead embarking on a new area. My family was very worried for me but were still very supportive. Less so, but I think they are still worried for me. I remember my mom would tell me when I was casting, kaun aayega dabbawalon ko dekhne? Today having a daughter myself, I understand this is not a profession for people who want to have a peaceful life. I am most attached to my dad. He has always been a silent supporter for whatever I wanted to do. He lost his job in India pretty late in life when he was 50 and he was forced to start his own business. I was 15 then. Despite this, he still sent me to the US and made a lot of sacrifices for me. I saw him go through that. And I felt that when he could do it at 50, I could do it at 25. I did not know that the film would be so successful but I just wanted to get out of that day-to-day drudgery of a 9 to 9 job.

Cheryl-Ann Couto @ThatIrateLady 18h

The Lunchbox is like a good student film.

You know Indian audiences are changing when you step inside a single screen theatre in India, playing The Lunchbox three times a day, and the public hooting and clapping during Irrfan Khan and Nawazzudin's entry in the movie. I was in for a complete shock when that happened. Like people hooting for Irrfan? Wish he himself was present in the theatre to see it because he DESERVES the hooting and the clapping!

As promised in the trailer, The Lunchbox is a short and sweet film playing with the theme of exchanging letters among strangers. The story is simple as shown in the trailer. But it takes a lot of talent to make a film out of two people exchanging letters and that's where Ritesh Batra shines! Brilliant direction by Ritesh. All the nuances that the characters make, the real life situations, the way the dabbawallas are shown, everything is just magic on screen! Add to that the contribution of actors like Nimrat Kaur, Nawazzudin and Irrfan Khan! They are not actors,they are real characters! I am falling short of words but I really don't know how to define their performances.
There are so many things that are said only through expressions like [SPOILER]Ila gets to know of her cheating husband through the smell of his T shirts, Irrfan seeing his surrounding before reading the letters in the canteen, the music that goes on when Irrfan is shown and how it suddenly stops when someone interrupts, the Saajan song[SPOILER ENDS].
The best part of the movie is Aunty Ji! Very good innovation to the story. The film is hilarious in parts with a little bit of seriousness here and there. I think it could be edited a bit more but then how much could they edit a 1hr 50 min movie?
[SPOILER]I am not that big a fan of open ended stories,actually I hate stories that have an open ended climax so inspite of liking the film, the climax was a disaapointment. Hence I can't say that the movie was brilliant because I wanted a climax, I wanted to know what happens to the characters.[SPOILER ENDS]. That made the whole movie watching experience a bit underwhelming towards the end. But overall, lovely movie with a very good concept. Easily one of the best films of 2013 but Oscar worthy?hmm..atleast for me it's a NO. I found the stories of Bhaag Milkha Bhaag and English Vinglish to have a lot of depth. The Lunchbox was too simple to contend at the Oscars.
Giving it a 3/5. Taking out 1 because of the climax.

Good job Ritesh!👏 Don't even feel like writing anything good about the producers after their immaturish behaviour.🤢

And a note to people who want to watch the film-Please have a wholesome meal before going inside the theatre or else your stomach will growl and you will drool seeing the delicacies Ila makes everyday in the movie. My eyes are on the Paneer Kofta!Uff!

Please excuse typos,if any. Too lazy to glance through the whole thing and edit.

indian sentiments must be changing

Saw this movie...was totally different than your typical song & dance Bollywood movie.

The Lunchbox is a lovely movie. After Lootera, this is the second release of 2013 that appealed to me in terms of story, acting and execution. The editing techniques of The Lunchbox creates an almost flawless transition of scenes from d suffocating walls of a middle class Malad apartment to the bustling chaotic yet suffocating work arena of the Claims department. Brilliant transition was especially d scene with regards to the ceiling fan that connected Ila, Saajan Fernandez, Aunty, Aunty's husband, Ila's apartment complex and Saajan's workplace, and the ever reliable power cuts in every major city of India. The actors r reminiscent of d characters of Doordarshan serials of d 1980s. Real yet surreal. Irrfan, Nimrit and Nawazuddin own each of their characters. Irrfan gets every nuance of his character! The reticence, d stoop of d shoulders, d way he takes off his glasses, d sniff he gives to d dabba, d way he looks around every time he gets ready to read one of Ila's letters, d first fleeting smile, d way he creates slow puffs of smoke when pulling on a ciggie. Relentless performance. Nawazudddin creates chaos with his peskiness in Saajan's life. He is like an onion smell that refuses to go away. Onions add flavour to any dish and Nawazuddin's character does d same to Saajan's sedate lonely life. He is d perpetual outsider rubbing a few shoulders d wrong way to fit in! A sheer delight in terms of d energy Nawazuddin brings to d story. Who can forget d dessert offerings of two bananas and later two apples as a way of getting his share of Ila's gastronomic delights? Nimrit's way of uttering Auntyyy stays with u long after d movie has ended. Lovely debut performance. Ila's desire to live in Bhutan was a tear jerker for me at least. The lovely Bhutanese song they played in d movie just underlined Ila's desperate bid for some happiness in her life. The open ending just created more layers. I quite liked it. Did Ila ever post dat final letter to Saajan? Did she really get to go to Bhutan? Or did Ila create her own graph of happiness in amchi Malad? D Tukaram song was sublime. So was d dabbawaala's announcement that they have been to Harvard and d Queen of England herself has felicitated their business sense and there is no scope of error with them. A visual treat that i will want to savour many times over. A must watch!

Just watched it...and d movie is so tasty!! Awesome work!! A must watch movie :)

What ... 😲 BW forum does not hav good cinema lovers ? 😲 Why is hit thread moving so slow. 😆