Rotten Tomatoes Score: 95% With 95% over at Rotten Tomatoes, The Lunchbox is one of the best reviewed movies of the year... and with a score like that, you'd likely expect miracles (it also won the International Critics' Week at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival). And to be fair, The Lunchbox is a good movie in a lot of ways, but is nothing of the masterful gem that so many critics have been keen to point out, mainly because it feels so unnatural and schematic in the way that the story unfolds. If you're unfamiliar with the plot, here goes: a woman, Ila, is looking to "spice up" her marriage to her rubbish husband, and introduces a new recipe to his daily lunchbox in the hope that he'll notice her. Of course, another man, Saajan, ends up eating the lunch instead, and - you guessed it - begins to fall in love with the woman behind the recipe. This is a good little film and it'll make you smile... but one can't help but feel it's been majorly overvalued.
Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.
