A Date for Mad Mary

Mary is getting out of jail just in time to be maid of honour at her best friend's wedding. Mary has a take-no-nonsense, never-back-down, have-a-good-time attitude to life and she really misses her best friend Charlene. But while Charlene has organised a fast food job for Mary, she is super busy organising her wedding and has no time to go drinking with her buddy. Everyone also assumes that because Mary has been in jail and has never had time for boyfriends, that she won't be bringing a +1. Mary is of course outraged that people including her best friend assume she won't have a +1 in time for the wedding.

A Date for Mad Mary is an Irish romcom set on the wrong side of the bus shelter. Mary (known from a safe distance as Mad Mary) lives with her mother and grandmother. The latter giving us a clue to the origin of Mary's personality by dropping the line "even a sniper wouldn't take you out" into casual conversation.

The film is punctuated by Mary writing and rehearsing her maid of honour speech about Charlene which provides the only clues to what their relationship was like before Mary went to jail. Which is necessary as there are no signs of the inseparable good-time-girls now, with most communication done by text message and voice mail.

If A Date for Mad Mary was only about the ever more desperate attempts to find a man to go to the wedding with her and pretend to be her boyfriend, or her attempts to get past the bouncers at her favourite night club it would be funny but there wouldn't be any character development. Though Mary is happiest dancing to loud music while drunk she has also been tasked with wrangling the somewhat unreliable wedding photographer, who unwittingly sets Mary on a path of self discovery.

Ian's rating 4/5 Anne's rating 4/5

The Lunchbox

Do you know what a Dabbawala is? The Hindi word for lunchbox and the original title of this movie is Dabba, and a Dabbawala is the lunch delivery guy. Mumbai's amazing system of door-to-door personalised delivery of home-cooked lunches is the backdrop for this movie.

Ila is a beautiful housewife who senses that her husband has lost interest in her. She attempts to regain his affection (or at least his attention) by making his delivered lunch particularly delicious. Unfortunately, the Dabbawala has made a rare delivery mix-up, and the delicious lunch is delivered to the wrong person. That evening when she's quizzing her husband about whether he enjoyed it or not , Ila realises her husband didn't get the lunch she made. The next day she puts a note with lunch in case it goes astray again, which it does. She gets a note in return, and so a relationship begins.

The lunch recipient is Saajan, a good-looking but curmudgeonly widower who works in an insurance office. He's about to retire and is supposed to be training the irrepressibly cheerful Shaikh to be his replacement. Lunch and a message from Ila become the highlight of his working day. Making lunch for a grateful but anonymous recipient becomes the highlight of hers.

The Lunchbox is a romance, and reminds us that romance and relationships come in many forms. It celebrates the particular pleasures brought by anticipation and surprise. It knows we all want to be noticed and appreciated and cared for, and that this can be done in a variety of ways. I think it also says a romance doesn't have to have the expected outcome to enrich the lives of the participants. If you find Hollywood or Bollywood rom-coms overly formulaic and want something a little different while still having your heart suitably warmed, The Lunchbox will deliver for you. And you'll get to experience something of Mumbai while it's doing it.

Anne's rating 4/5 Ian's rating 4/5