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The Lunchbox
2013 104 min France, Germany, India, United States of America PG 6+
★7.9
Drama, Romance
Director: Ritesh Batra
Trailers
EN
EN
Description
A mistaken delivery in Mumbai's famously efficient lunchbox delivery system (Mumbai's Dabbawallahs) connects a young housewife to a stranger in the dusk of his life. They build a fantasy world together through notes in the lunchbox. Gradually, this fantasy threatens to overwhelm their reality.
Budget:
$3.4M
US Gross:
$4.24M
Worldwide:
$17.24M
Starring
Irrfan Khan
Actor
Nimrat Kaur
Actor
Nawazuddin Siddiqui
Actor
Awards
Cannes Film Festival 2013
— Big Golden Rail Award
Asian Film Academy 2014
— Best Actor
Asian Film Academy 2014
— Best Screenplay
Asian Film Academy 2014
— Best Actor
Asian Film Academy 2014
— Best Picture
BAFTA 2015
— Best International Feature Film
Asian Film Academy 2014
— Best Screenplay
Key opinion
The Lunchbox is widely celebrated as a subtle, poignant, and refreshingly restrained departure from traditional, melodramatic Bollywood cinema. By focusing on the quiet, human-scale connection between two lonely souls in Mumbai, it offers an accessible yet profound meditation on urban isolation and the longing for change.
| Acting | The performances are masterfully understated, with subtle facial expressions and gestures conveying profound emotional depth. | |
| Direction | Ritesh Batra’s direction adopts a refined, neorealist tone that strips away the spectacle of song, dance, and cliches in favor of a quiet, lyrical, and authentic atmosphere. | |
| Pacing | The film’s deliberate, contemplative pacing creates an intimate mood, though some viewers find this slow tempo boring or exhausting without the right expectations. | |
| Ending | The ambiguous, open-ended conclusion is a point of contention, with some finding it a poetic reflection on life's uncertainty and others feeling disappointed by the lack of resolution. |