a light meal in 'Stanley Ka Dabba'

I used to study in a school which had canteen among its permanent absentees. I always used to get angry about this cruel fact whenever I use to hear my after-school tuition peers discussing the day’s happenings at canteen. I relived some moments back today. Stanley is a beautiful movie and very well suited incase you like light-hearted ones.

Rating – 3.75/5

Story –
Stanley is a bright kid who studies in fourth class and doesn’t bring his dabba (tiffin). However his classmates are there for him and Stanley erases his hunger from his peers’ dabbas. The children of class are natural actors and it’s a pleasure to watch them.
Like every school, here too we have a strict strange teacher (fantastically stereotyped) – BabuBhai Verma (played by Amol Gupte). He loves plunging into his students’ dabbas and is the ‘bad-teacher’ of the movie. The race for dabbas is now like a cartoon series – Uncle Scrooge vs Beagle Boys (Stanley vs BbB). The first half of the movie is better paced than second half. The climax has a message which also reveals the answer to Stanley inability to get his piece of tinbox.

Since you are in school, how can you miss out on regular characters (without which a school-movie does not complete)? So, there is a Rosy Miss and a Mrs. Iyer (again fantastically stereotyped). Rosy Miss is the cute English teacher and Mrs. Iyer belongs to science. These characters brings movie close to real life and helps the movie to create that school ambiance. You can easily identify them with teachers in your life (abbey mere school mere bhi bilkul aisi hi ek Miss thi!).

Star Cast –
Partho (son of Amole Gupte) as Stanley is brilliant. He is natural throughout. Not to leave out his gang. Amole Gupte (writer-producer-director-actor) is a researcher of children behavior and his effort shows. His observations of children’s activities have helped him to write child-sequences and a judgment on his creative abilities won’t be wise especially after witnessing Taare Zameen Par. Divya Dutta as Rosy Miss is sweet. Divya Jagdale teaching science looks real and rational.

However, music needed to be a bit more emotional and touching. Nevertheless, nostalgic feelings do arise after watching Stanley and as they say! Everybody loves to peek in his future once in a while. Stanley Ka Dabba opens a chance of going back to fourth standard.

Speaking Pictures verdict – Innocent unadulterated pleasure with cute smiles. Who will like to miss it! GO for it.

What works – great acting, school nostalgia, special moments of fourth grade
And what not – music, lack of quality emotional content (like we experienced in Taare Zameen Par)

ps: I remember as we didn’t had a canteen, our class teacher use to ask the class to contribute food incase somebody missed his lunchbox. But the catch was she too tasted the best meals from that collected lot. Movie dekh ke confirm ho gaya ki chaalaak thi (That she was clever is confirmed after watching this movie).