What Is the Story About?
Lust Stories 2 is the sequel to Netflix’s hit 2018 anthology film. The film consists of four short stories, directed by four acclaimed directors, with lust and sexuality as their central theme. R. Balki, Konkona Sen Sharma, Sujoy Ghosh and Amit Sharma are the four directors at the helm of Lust Stories 2. The film is produced by Ronnie Screwvala’s RSVP Movies, And Ashi Dua’s Flying Unicorn Entertainment.
Performances?
Neena Gupta is terrific, and a delight to watch, as the progressive grandmother in R. Balki’s segment. Mrunal Thakur and Angad Bedi lend good support.
Tillotama Shome’s performance is the cream of the lot in Konkona Sen Sharma’s short story. Hers is a superb portrayal, complete with brilliant expressions and body language. Amruta Subhash underlines her value as a performer par excellence yet again, in this thought-provoking short story.
Vijay Verma and Tamannaah Bhatia share electrifying chemistry in Sujoy Ghosh’s short, with commendable performances to match.
Finally, Kajol renders a moving performance in Amit Sharma’s segment, as a helpless mother, caught in a loveless marriage with a misogynist and sexual predator. Kumud Mishra is suitably despicable as the abominable husband.
Analysis
Netflix’s Lust Stories 2 is a markedly watered down sequel to the 2018 debut movie, which was a hit for the new platform then. Maybe, the current trend of boycott demands for even relatively tame content on OTT has compelled Netflix to cut out explicit sequences from the sequel. After all, it wasn’t too long ago that keyboard warriors had gotten after Netflix’s own ‘Rana Naidu’ and its explicit content.
Whatever be the reason, Lust Stories 2 is quite tame in comparison to the first film, with nothing much in to satisfy the average viewer’s desire to watch, well, ‘lust’ on screen.
The four short stories that make up the anthology are not even too impressive or affecting in core content. The first short, co-written and directed by R. Balki, emphasises the importance of sexual compatibility in a successful, happy marriage. The story is apt for our times, when girls demand—and dare we say, get—sexual satisfaction from their partners.
Gone are the days when couples lived out sexually incompatible marriages, giving in to societal pressure and regressive thought processes. And yes, Mount Fuji will never be the same for us ever again. That said, the first short is quite harmless, trivial, and certainly not a story that makes any kind of lasting impact on the viewer.
Konkana Sen Sharma’s segment is the most interesting of the four short films. The story is distinctive and unique, and perhaps the only one in the film that stays true to the ‘lust’ tag. Ishita (Tillotama Shome) is a successful woman, living a sexless, partner-less life. Ishita inadvertently discovers that she has voyeuristic tendencies, when she spies her domestic help having a makeout session with a man in her home and on her bed; and gets a sexual kick out of it.
Her help Seema Didi (Amruta Subhash) too realises Ishita’s fetish, and starts enjoying being watched, while she daily has sex with the man in her employer’s bed. Through her quirky story, Konkona Sen Sharma expertly brings out the reality of sexual fetishes in humans.
She also touches upon things like India’s rich-poor divide and the related double standards in our society; Mumbai’s notorious lack of space and privacy for those living in its sprawling slums, and more.
Konkona Sen Sharma’s short film is easily the best of the four — nuanced, thought-provoking and decidedly different. It helps that it has powerhouse performers Tillotama Shome and Amruta Subhash, portraying the unconventional roles.
The last two short films, by Sujoy Ghosh and Amit Sharma, respectively, feature stinging twists in their tails. But they also lose the core essence of the anthology in the process. Sujoy Ghosh’s short is the weakest of the four, not by way of its making or storytelling—both top-notch, for the record—but the central theme of lust is grossly missing in the story. Of course, the lovemaking part in it is the best of the four short stories, going by its hotness quotient.
Amit Sharma’s short film says a lot about the pitfalls of lust, as also the fact that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. But in doing so, it leaves you saddened and discomfited by the end. Surprisingly, the subtext in the short film subtly lets us in on the protagonist’s latent penchant for violence. The story by itself, without the ‘lust’ angle, is poignant and compelling.
To sum it up, Lust Stories 2 seems like the poor country-bumpkin cousin of the original Lust Stories. Watch it certainly, but don’t expect it to be mind-blowing or brilliant or anything of that sort.
Music and Other Departments?
Raja Narayan Deb, Aman Pant, Sagar Desai and Subhajit Mukherjee have scored the music for the four shorts, in order of their streaming, respectively. The music in all four is on point, and perfectly suited to the stories they want to tell. Tapan Tushar Basu has handled the camera for both R. Balki and Amit Sharma’s short films. However, it is his cinematography in Amit Sharma’s short that hits the sweet spot on screen, enhancing the despondency and despair that is inherent in the story. The editing, by Urvashi Saxena, Nayan HK Bhadra, Sanyukta Kaza and Chandrashekhar Prajapati, is efficient, especially Nayan HK Bhadra’s in Konkona Sen Sharma’s short film.
Highlights?
Tillotama Shome’s performance
Konkona Sen Sharma and Amit Sharma’s short films
Drawbacks?
Tame follow-up to the original
Unimpressive stories
Did I Enjoy It?
I found it average
Will You Recommend It?
As a one-time watch
Lust Stories 2 Movie Review by Binged Bureau
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