The Lunchbox (Hindi): Director Ritesh Batra's directorial debut is raw, warm, humane, no nonsense and a beautiful film which has shades of European Cinema and Neo Realism in its fold. The film scores because of its brilliant and original screenplay, which was written by Batra and was also developed in Rotterdam, Berlin and Torino film festivals. It has an excellent development with unpredictable moments , a twisty climax and crackling dialogues, despite the second half having few hiccups. This love story over the Dabbas and Letters has been well portrayed in the film which won the Critics Choice Award at the Cannes Film Festival this year. Then it's the cinematography by Michael Simmonds that beautifully captures the Mumbai locals , the dabbawalas and locales and his long takes are actually a reminiscent of European films and old Hollywood classics . Editing by John F. Lyons is beautiful and he takes motif based shots and even the shots of the moving trains and places them well to make the film's travel smoothly. The performances by Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Nimrat Kaur, Nakul Vaid, Lillete Dubey, Denzil Smith and Bharati Acharekar are brilliant and they stand out well with their flawless performances. Irrfan Khan revisits his "Paan Singh Tomar" charm and makes you bear with him at every moment of the film. Please go for this film for a warm cinematic venture for it's originality, warmth and rawness in it's narrative and a twisty romantic fold.
My rating would be 4/5
Review By - Yash Mishra