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Lunchbox Movie Reviews ( Recommended 83 %)
Lunchbox Reviews Recommended By NDTV Movies - Saibal Chatterjee
Batra captures that spirit with an unfailing and unsentimental eye, and gives the real-life dabbawalas and their songs a central place in the screenplay. The three central performances are terrific, with Irrfan and Nawazuddin striking up a duet that is absolutely spectacular.
Lunchbox Reviews Recommended By India Today - Vinayak Chakravorty
Ritesh Batra's grasp of imagery belies the fact that he is a debutant, as Mumbai comes alive in its crowded locals, children playing cricket on the streets, rickshaws and ramshackle taxis. The imagining of the localities Fernandez and Ila reside in is quietly used to define their socio-cultural divide. Overall, the tone maintained never misses the point that The Lunchbox is essentially a love story.
Lunchbox Reviews Recommended By Bollywood Hungama - Taran Adarsh
Debutant director Ritesh Batra does a magnificent job of encapsulating the interminable restlessness of a city that is constantly on the go. While doing so, he expertly gives voice to the fears that constantly plague the minds of individuals though the exchange of hand-written letters, besides infusing that certain soul, warmth and compassion in the narrative. He also deserves kudos for choosing an unconventional plot, combining romance and food that's sure to strike a chord with cineastes. In fact, it won't be erroneous to state that the film's strength lies in its simplistic plot and an unfussy screenplay, besides the striking performances of its principal actors.
Lunchbox Reviews Recommended By The Times Of India - Srijana Mitra Das
Irrfan is matched by Nimrat's Ila, soft as a sandesh, but with a mysterious, molten heart. Quiet moments, like Nimrat's expression when she smells the world on her husband's shirts, catch you. Ila's story, housewives living for husbands who switch off, is beautifully conveyed. The two are ably supported by chirpy, pesky Shaikh (Nawazuddin), Saajan's trainee, chopping vegetables on office files, melting the final barriers to Fernandes' frozen heart.
Lunchbox Reviews Recommended By DNA India - Harshada Rege
Debutant director Ritesh Batra has a firm grip over the narrative. The director brings alive an era when love letters played a crucial role... probably something that people who are busy romancing over SMSes won't know about.
Lunchbox Reviews Recommended By Koimoi - Mohar Basu
Debutant Ritesh Batra dishes out in his first film, that many filmmakers can’t achieve in years. His characters have the mystic charm of yesteryear beauty. He makes his film revel in simplicity as the two protagonists are drawn to each other via letters and food.
Lunchbox Reviews Recommended By Sify - Sonia Chopra
And the finale is the perfect, darkly delicious dessert to this lunchbox. How you perceive it, depends on your lookout. I left the movie with a smile, so I perceived it a certain way, while my frowning colleague wondered how it was all so unfair. (In a press conference after the film, Batra received the maximum number of questions about the film’s end).
Lunchbox Reviews Recommended By Movietalkies - Jaidev Hemmady
In this world of instant messaging and social networking, comes a love story that revolves around hand-written letters and we must say, this story will win your heart. There is indeed something quaint about the way these two lonely individuals come close without meeting or even seeing each other. The way Batra manages to portray loneliness in a city, known for its hustle-bustle, is simply amazing.
Lunchbox Reviews Recommended By Indian Express - Shubhra Gupta
Ritesh Batra's research on the legendary Mumbai dabbawalas who deliver millions of lunchboxes everyday through the city with unerring accuracy, led to his first feature. 'The Lunchbox' is about a dabba that fetches up at the wrong table, and the tasty fall-out of that little sin. I don't know if those famed dabbawalas have ever made such a mistake, but the result of Batra's mixed-up 'dabbas' is lovely, with a lingering delectable after-taste.
Lunchbox Reviews Recommended By Rediff - Raja Sen
It is a simple story with unanimous appeal, told with unshowy efficacy, and yet The Lunchbox is the most fascinating film to come out of Bombay in a very, very long time. In many ways -- not least because it is an astonishing directorial debut -- The Lunchbox is this generation’s Masoom. The Mumbai dabbawala is a miracle, a human cog with clockwork precision who operates, it seems, well outside Mumbai’s haphazard universe, and yet fuels the mercenaries shovelling coal into the city’s ever-open maw.
Lunchbox Reviews Recommended By Bollywood Life - Namrata Thakker
As far as acting is concerned, Irrfan plays the part of a lonely old man effortlessly. Nimrat and Nawazuddin are flawless in this old-world charm, unconventional love story. Lastly, what kept lingering in the mind even after the movie was long over were these lines: We forget things if we have no one to tell them to, and sometimes, even the wrong train can take you to the right destination.
Lunchbox Reviews Recommended By Planet Bollywood - Stutee Ghosh
The subtlety of the romance, mellifluous love, the bitter sweet pangs of loneliness and advancing age to the vacuum of a dry marriage add to that the tangy anticipation of the unknown - it is all there yet it’s quintessentially about two people falling in love with mouthwatering food as accompaniment. And the best of course is the end. Open ended it may seem but as the director himself said in one of his interviews the film keeps playing in our mind long after we leave the hall. It occupies that pristine corner in our heart where we store everything special everything we ever yearn for. You might come up with multitudinous ways that Ila and Saajan’s life could or might turn out but one thing that everyone will agree with is that The Lunch Box is indeed very very special.
Lunchbox Reviews Recommended By Dailybhaskar - Mayank Shekhar
Drawing on these three main characters – housewife from Malad, Mac Uncle from Bandra, married assistant from Dongri – debutant writer-director Ritesh Batra remarkably scripts a story of loneliness that affects the best of us living in the world’s most crowded cities. Since its award winning debut at Cannes, the film has found interested mainstream producers (Karan Johar, UTV) to back its release in India, followed by intense media lobbying to ensure it is India’s entry to the Oscars. This is the only way a small, simple film like this can travel such a huge distance.
