Movie: The Lunch Box

I’m delighted to see this on the listings for the Virgin flight to Vancouver in May. I’d heard about it but missed it at the cinema – one of those gone in a blink.I was extra pleased as there wasn’t much on offer on board. Ordinarily I see a film I’ve missed, a film I’ve never heard off – usually world cinema – and one film I’ve already seen before, along with a couple of TV programmes I’ve never seen.Alas, I boarded this flight having caught most things and there was nothing I’d want to see again on the small screen. The complete opposite of now as I’ve hardly been to the cinema at all since returning from Canada – not even had the time for the weekly Friday film! For now, a look back at this lovely Indian film, with subtitles and smattering of spoken English – there’s some words that can only be said in English.A short film (104 minutes), it's based around the a mixed up in lunch boxes. It appears that in Mumbai at least, there is an active trade in catering companies that deliver lunch to the office workers. The worker supplies the flask container, puts in the request, the food is prepared – no painfully boring  sandwiches in sight – delivered and the container comes back for the next day.Only a lunch box made by a bored, housewife to impress her nonchalant husband is wrongly delivered to an older widower about to retire. When the husband doesn’t thank is young wife for the extra effort, she realises something has gone wrong and the two exchange letters of gratitude and apologies.If we set aside that even when the wife goes to the delivery company and tells them they are sending her home-cooked food designed or her husband to the wrong man, the resolutely refuse to accept they are making an error, and that the error continues, and that the husband doesn’t realise that’s not his wife’s home cooking, this is a lovely film.Throw into the mix the young upstart that has been recruited to replace the retiree who has such respect, admiration and joy at being given the opportunity – I know, this is NOT the UK – another storyline develops to keep this moving along at a gentle pace.The two lonely people begin a friendship based on letters back and forth in the lunch box. Will they ever meet, with what they have in common, the warmth in their words despite the age gap?I’ll leave that for you to see but do yourself a favour and take 104 minutes to see this when you can.7½/10Smile factor 9/10