Our take
“Sometimes even the wrong train takes you to the right destination”. In this thoughtful feature film debut by Ritesh Batra, we follow a lonely Indian housewife, Ila (Nimrat Kaur), as she tries to come to terms with a cheating husband, a stale relationship, and a dying father, while seeking love, attention, and appreciation through her cooking. One day, she sends out a special lunch to her husband, but her delivery goes to the wrong address. Spicy food is complemented with a spicy note and thus begins an unlikely and unique romance through the letters she packs in the lunchbox day after day. The man on the receiving end is Saajan, a middle-aged office worker, played by Bollywood star Irrfan Khan. With its delightful characters and beautiful acting, this was a huge success in India, but there is no reason to believe that this bittersweet, Mumbai-based story couldn’t be a hit anywhere in the world.
What it won
Cannes
1 win
BAFTA
1 nom
Sundance
1 nom
The story
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.
Elsewhere
"A Rolls Royce romantic comedy set in Mumbai that rides on a delectable, bittersweet central turn by Irrfan Khan."
— David Jenkins
Streaming arrival
"First-time writer-director Batra nearly overplays his hand at a couple of moments, but all in all this is a film of finely judged reserve, and acutely anti-sentimental."
— Jonathan Romney