Stanley Ka Dabba - a plain storyline, with the regular Indian school setup and largely unfamiliar cast - is a well-scripted,well-characterized brilliantly directed movie that leaves you with an immediate freshness that rarely many movies can do.
Its the story of Stanley, a 4th standard student in a missionary school. Stanley and many of his friends are the quintessential restless,playful and curious kids. They play,share stories,learn together and yes share their "Dabbas" (lunch boxes)-the central plot of the movie,as you can make out from the title. The story is pretty straight-forward here on. You have the different characters in the teachers. A strict and no-nonsense science teacher, A beautiful and encouraging English teacher. However the teacher who takes the cake(quite literally:) ) is the ever-hungry and mean Hindi teacher(Amol Gupte).
the movie never loses its flavour, displaying with beauty the innocence and puerile nature of the kids and the rhythmic monotony of everyday school that we've all been part of.
Amol Gupte has definitely made one of the best kids-oriented movies in the Indian cinema sphere. Not only is the direction top-notch, he has even acted brilliantly as the insatiably hungry teacher,who shows no shame in eating out of his students' lunch boxes. Special praises to Partho who has done such amazing work as Stanley, and Divya Dutta who just by her sheer screen presence brings in positivity to the frame.
When i saw the title and even until the movie started playing in the theater, I thought this was a children's movie.But soon realized it was a wrong notion. This movie is as much for adults as is for the kids.If you want a break from the regular humdrum of Hindi cinema and want to see meaningful cinema without the preachiness (like Taare Zameen Par) then go watch Stanley Ka Dabba, cause u wont be disappointed. Kudos to Amol gupte for taking the viewers on a nostalgic trip back to school and special mention on how dexterously the message has been woven into the story.
