For this installment of This Day That Year, Subhash K Jha refocuses on Ritesh Batra’s Photograph.

After The Lunchbox, why did Ritesh Batra let us down so miserably with Photograph? Think about it. It had everything going for it. A director whose first film The Lunchbox became the most beloved Indian film since Satyajit Ray’s Pather Panchali and who has since then worked with international icons like Robert Redford, Jane Fonda, Jim Broadbent, Charlotte Rampling.

Photograph featured a cast and a lead pair that looked tempting if not entirely inviting, and most of all, it was meant to be the Nri director’s homage to the city he loves the most Mumbai.

But Mumbai in Batra’s Photograph looks like a city that is losing its sparkle and drowning in its dreams. The fact that the characters are flat and the presentation is listless could have something to...