The Lunchbox, winner of Critics’ Week Viewers Choice Award at Cannes 2013. A mistaken delivery in Mumbai’s famously efficient lunchbox delivery system connects a young housewife to an older man in the dusk of his life as they build a fantasy world together through notes in the lunchbox. They each discover a new sense of self and find an anchor to hold on to in the big city of Mumbai that so often crushes hopes and dreams. But since they’ve never met, Ila and Saajan become lost in a virtual relationship that could jeopardize both their realities. (Source: Youtube)
I don’t know when I became old. Maybe it was that morning. Maybe it was many, many mornings ago… Life kept going and lulled me with its motions. I kept rocking back and forth as it threw me left and threw me right. And before I knew it…
“This is an uplifting story of one of those chance encounters that can radically change the course of someone’s life. Germain is a large and almost illiterate man in his fifties. He is unmarried and still lives with his mother with whom he has a fractious relationship. Margueritte is a tiny, elderly woman with a passion for the written word. There’s 40 years and 200 pounds’ difference between them and only one thing in common, a shared fondness for pigeons. When Germain happens to sit beside her on a park bench and Margueritte reads extracts from her novels to him, an unlikely and unexpected friendship develops. Under Margueritte’s tutelage, Germain discovers a love of literature and with it, a wisdom which confounds his friends at the bistro who have always treated him like an idiot. As Margueritte begins to lose her eyesight, Germain sees an opportunity to use his love for this sweet and mischievous grandma to improve both his own life and hers.”
Not always are love stories just made of love. Sometimes love is not named but it’s love just the same. This is not a typical love affair I met her on a bench in my local square. She made a little stir, tiny like a bird with her gentle feathers. She was surrounded by words, some as common as myself. She gave me books, two or three. Their pages have come alive for me. Don’t die now, you’ve still got time, just wait It’s not the hour, my little flower. Give me some more of you. More of the life in you.
If you have a passion for reading and books, you’ll enjoy this movie. A slow, gentle, feels-like-Disney-for-adults, fits-on-Sunday movie. French with English subtitles. Can be found on Amazon Instant Video for $2.99.
If there was any doubt that Meryl Streep is the greatest living actress or that Julia Roberts possesses extraordinary talent, set it aside. This flick is highly recommended.
RogerEbert.com (3.5/4.0 Stars): “Believable. Heartbreaking..A small gem in which the uplift feels earned rather than preached.”
Vulture.com: “The finest and most wrenching American (fictional) movie so far this year.“
NY Times (2.5 / 5.0 Stars): “Some of the narrative complications feel forced rather than organic. Yet even as the gathering melodramatic storms threaten to swamp this pungent slice of life, Mr. Cretton manages to earn your tears honestly.”