The Lunchbox (2014)

In one of the reviews that I read this movie was compared to an Ernst Lubitsch film "Shop Around the Corner"--which is ironic, because in my quest to maintain my liberal education I have been watching all the films that my son's film class watches, and this semester it is all about Lubitsch, a director I had literally never heard about six months ago.

The story is set in Mumbai, which has what I have come to know is a famously efficient and accurate lunch box delivery service througout the city.  Workers can contracat with a lunch box service or home cooks can prepare lunches for loved ones that will be delivered warm at lunch time.  The food in this movie makes it worth the watch--I would love for a cookbook to come out covering how to make all these delectable dishes!

The story is that Ila (Ninrat Kaur) is neglected by her spouse.  She is desperate to reconnect with him, and her helpful and meddling neighbor suggests she cook him an extra special lunch, which she does.  The lunch box comes back clean, like he licked the plate, but he says nothing to her that evening.  When she questions him a bit further, she begins to realize that the lunch went to someone else.  That someone is Saajan (played by Irrfan Kahn), a widowed man who lives a solitary existence both at work and at home.  Instead of correcting the error, they start a correspondence, notes within the lunchbox, which leads them to a place neither of them thought they were going to.  they got on the wrong train but ended up at the right station.