The Lunch Date

The lunch date is about a woman who is probably a wealthy Jew living in New York based on her posture and wardrobe.  She goes to a train station and unfortunately she accidently runs into a homeless man who knocks a bunch of her grooming items out of her purse.  After she picks them up she ends up missing her train.  When she buys a salad to while waiting for the next train she sees a black man with a hat that looks stolen eating what she presumes is to be her salad.  She eats some and he eats some.  Then he gets them coffee.  She leaves for her train but forgot her bags.  Then she comes back and realizes that the man did no steal her salad and instead she just sat at the wrong table.

 

What I like about the film is that you think that it’s a period piece until you see the black man in the diner.  The tag on his hat looks contemporary so you do not know when this takes place.  At that moment you feel disoriented.  Also when the woman returns to the table you might notice that each of the shots are framed to not reveal the whole table so you don’t realize that she sat down in the wrong place.  It’s good because it keeps you thinking that he really did steal her salad until the end.  Clever!