Review: There is neither lust nor story in ‘Lust Stories 2’

There is not much pulp to Lust Stories 2, it is Kajol and Tilottama who come out winners here, watch it for these two

Hyderabad: When Netflix dropped Lust Stories in 2018, it quickly became controversial for a number of reasons – one being Kiara Advani’s character achieving ‘Mount Fuji’ (we shall revisit this phrase later) right in front of her entire family and the other for the graphic sex scenes.

Its sequel Lust Stories 2 is no better with only two stories that actually salvage the anthology and have the controversial element Netflix was going for. Out of the four stories by R Balki, Konkon Sen Sharma, Sujoy Ghosh and Amit Ravindernath Sharma, only two have the right amount of lust and story to boot.

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R Balki’s Made For Each Other is his cringiest work yet. He meant to show a fresh take on the arrange marriage concept, but it’s anything but. Made for Each other is about Veda (Mrunal Thakur) and Arjun (Angad Bedi) who have just gotten engaged. They are encouraged by Veda’s grandmother (Neena Gupta) to see whether they are sexually compatible. Her idea is – ‘you test drive a car before you buy it’, so why not before shaadi. And so, the couple goes at it behind closed hotel doors.

Neena Gupta’s grandmother was written as this ‘woke and cool person’ who openly talks about sexual encounters and the importance of reaching ‘Mount Fuji’ with your partner. But you actually cringe listening to the dialogues. Balki probably thought he was creating awareness about mature conversations around sex, but the attempt comes across really cheap and crass.

Moving on, the actual lust is in Konkona Sen Sharma’s The Mirror which turns up the heat significantly. Tilottama Shome plays Isheeta, a corporate executive who lives a solitary existence in her apartment. She has a trusty maid servant Seema (Amrutha Subhash) who cooks and cleans the apartment. The apple cart is rolling smoothly until Isheeta returns home one afternoon to find Seema and her husband getting it on in her bed. Shocked at first, she soon starts watching them in the throes, until one day when Seema discovers her voyeur courtesy the mirror. Shome and Subhash do a fabulous job exploring a very dark side to this vicarious relationship. The writing by Pooja Tolani and Konkona is strong in this one and the latter shows a lot of promise as a first-time director.

Sujoy Ghosh’s Sex with Ex stars alleged real-life couple Tamannaah Bhatia and Vijay Varma who play a long disappeared wife Shanti and her corporate honcho husband, Vijay Chauhan, respectively. Vijay is on his way to meet a lover when he crashes his car into a tree to avoid hitting a cyclist. Looking for help, he walks into a town where he meets his ‘disappeared’ wife Shanti. Old sparks are rekindled and the two make whoopee despite the fact the Vijay is married to another woman and has two boys. Something is amiss here accentuated by the dreamyscape, but the chemistry between the two leads holds your attention till a detour at the end.

Kajol shines in Amit Ravindernath Sharma’s Tilchatta which touches on sexual violence, feudal evils and revenge. Tilchatta sees Kajol play Devyani Singh, a powerless queen in a palace that has seen better days. Her husband, Suraj Singh (Kumud Mishra), an erstwhile feudal lord, now a raging drunk takes out his frustrations on women, whether it be his wife or some poor woman. Devyani plots her revenge by bringing in a young maid, Rekha (Anushka Kaushik) and Suraj begins lusting after her. Devyani hopes to escape the hellish palace to live with her son, Ankur in England. Kajol doesn’t have many dialogues, she acts with her eyes and when the twist comes at the end, her horror at her actions is palpable.

There is not much pulp to Lust Stories 2, it is Kajol and Tilottama who come out winners here, watch it for these two.