A clever setup that harkens back to “You’ve Got Mail” and “The Shop Around the Corner” doesn’t quite pay off in India’s warm-hearted comedy-drama “The Lunchbox.”
Ila (Nimrat Kaur) plays a sad middle-class housewife whose husband has lost interest in her. As the film opens, she is preparing a lunchtime meal (to be home-cooked but sent to him at the office by a delivery boy, as is the custom) so extraordinary that he won’t be able to help but notice the passion that went into it. Except he never gets it: Instead, a fellow lonely-heart, a widowed accountant just about to retire played by Irrfhan Khan (“Life of Pi”) is mistakenly delivered the meal, and all the amazement that goes with it.
The two of them, without ever meeting, strike up a charming correspondence via daily notes inserted in the lunchbox. But though this delicate film makes the most of its sensitive lead actors it can’t quite bring itself to follow through on where it’s headed. Rather than ending, it trickles to a close with both characters no happier.