Lust Stories 2 Review: The Anthological lust-driven drama stories are back with some new plots on Netflix. With a runtime of about 2 hours and 12 minutes, the screenplay is written by Sujoy Ghosh, R Balki and Rishi Virmani, Konkona Sen Sharma and Pooja Tolani, Saurabh Choudhary and Amit Ravindernath Sharma. It is Produced by Ashi Dua and Ronnie Screwvala.
The cast of the film includes Kajol, Mrunal Thakur, Neena Gupta, Tamannaah Bhatia, Vijay Varma, Amruta Subhash, Tillotama Shome, Kumud Mishra, Angad Bedi and others.
-Contains Spoilers-
Lust Stories 2 Review
The first story is from R Balki and follows Veda (Mrunal Thakur) and Arjun (Angad Bedi), who are about to get married to each other. While everything is going well, Veda’s grandmother (Neena Gupta) brings up the topic of physical compatibility between the couple. So much so that she is against the marriage unless the bride & groom explore if they are truly satisfied with each other in bed. Among all the films, this one falls in the ‘U’ rated category as sex talk starts to feel so preachy instead. It would perfectly fit in a public awareness video campaign for soon-to-be-married couples to watch.
The second story is from Konkona Sen Sharma and the story revolves around the topic of voyeurism, where people find pleasure in seeing people get intimate and vice versa. It follows Isheeta, who one day accidentally finds her house help having sex with her husband, on her bed. At first, she is stunned to witness it but her curiosity gets the best of her and she ends up secretly watching them every day doing the deed. The twist in the story comes when the house help also realises that she is being watched yet continues doing so.
It was definitely a new concept and evidently shows the difference between the male gaze in other stories and from the perspective of a female. The others are more about visuals, Konkona’s story taps into the emotional stimulation of the character. Out of the four stories, this accurately defines a kind of lust that isn’t explored a lot.
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The third story is by Sujoy Ghosh and follows Vijay Varma, who meets with an accident while on his way and finds himself in a strange town. He is the CEO of a company having an extramarital affair but gets a call about an emergency meeting at work. Stuck in a small town after crashing his car, he finds his ex-wife there, who disappeared about 10 years ago. Through their interaction, the reason behind her disappearance is revealed, which changes the course of Vijay’s own life. This was a mind-boggling story which doesn’t exactly fit the criteria of sex, love or desire.
It’s a short film that tries to pack a lot of elements in a span of a few minutes, to make a big impact, but only leaves you confused. It uses some double-meaning dialogues and emphasises the objectification of the source of desire. If only the plot was simplified and took the romantic route, instead of thriller, it would have been a better watch.
The last story is from Saurabh Choudhary and Amit Ravindernath Sharma, following an abusive marriage. This story definitely made me question – why is abuse so normalised here and definitely caters for the wrong audience. One would presume that the title refers to the celebration of types of lust/desires but the way it shows the immoral desire of a lurid man is just distasteful. Kajol wants to get rid of her abusive husband and the way she tries to do that is by hiring a person with an STD presumably. So that when her husband tries to make advances on the new help, he catches the same and probably dies (?).
Firstly, it portrays the misconception that all STDs are life-threatening when it’s quite curable with the right treatment. Secondly, even if the husband contracts the STD, if he forces himself on the wife again, then she will get it too, failing the logic behind the motive. Although the story doesn’t end the way she intends but in no way, is this story worth being added to the list.
Final Thoughts
Out of all four stories, only the second one seems to understand the assignment and ace it. The other three show the stereotypical representation that we have been subjected to for years in Bollywood. Even if the stories aren’t something out of the box, they should be sensible enough and true to the title they are representing. The Indian creators need to unlearn the notion which relates sex and desire with mostly force, violence or absolutely preachy that would make the viewer completely disinterested.
Rating: 2/5
Lust Stories 2 is currently available for streaming on Netflix.
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