Lust Stories 2 review: Equal parts passionate and ponderous

But the most taken-aback couple in this lot, shockingly, are the two youngsters who appear more sedate than sexed-up, and who need to be chivvied by an old woman to traipse up and down hotel corridors where, presumably, they are discovering the joys of S-E-X. I say presume because the film doesn’t believe in showing us anything more than the doors closing, and not even two flowers nodding.

Watching the feisty Neena Gupta be turned into a smug advice-spouting sexpert without an iota of the said quality is so, um, not sexy? And also, yes, contrived. Which grandmother, in the kind of household where sex is never spoken of, where no one holds hands or shows any signs of PDS, will say what she does, especially in company? ‘Made For Each Other’ is nothing but preachy message-y Bollywood trying to please the millenials as well as showing a mirror to the oldies — sex-is-important-for-a-good-marriage — and falling flat.

Vijay Varma does a good job of being the kind of guy who’s always looking for the main chance: have woman, will leap. We see him tootling along in a car talking dirty to a woman who is clearly waiting for him, switching calls back and forth from an irate wife-and-two-kids, and suddenly finding himself up close to an ex-lover (Tamannaah) who left him many years back.

Why did you run, he asks, eyeing the curve of her waist. Wait, let me have a bath, she tosses over her shoulder, suggestively. Varma looks as if he was just waiting for that line to make a beeline for the bathroom door. Have keyhole, will peep. We are properly intrigued. It promises just the kind of messiness that a story of unbridled lust should have, and Varma is totally up for it, but then Sujoy Ghosh’s ‘Sex With The Ex’ becomes more than a bit confused: is this a ghost story playing out in an alternate universe (the colours are saturated, the characters are exaggerated, the houses look like sets) or a man wanting to have his cake, and eat everything in the bakery shop?

Watch the trailer of Lust Stories 2

Amit Ravindernath Sharma’s ‘Tilchatta’ has Kumud Mishra play a randy middle-aged man who cannot look at women without stripping them with his eyes. A newly-hired young house help (Anushka Kaushik) is his next target, and as he sets upon his seduction game, he is unaware that he is, in turn, being targeted. The decrepit haveli he lives in, with his put-upon wife (Kajol) and son (Zeeshan Nadaf), is falling down around his ears, but he will not give it up; nor will he give up rutting, even if it hurts those closest to him. Kajol may be the marquee name in this episode, but it is the others who are more effective, specially Kaushik who plays the timidly flirtatious maid, and the lecherous Mishra — a scene they share oozes with putrid lust, covering the viewer with its slime.

It is Konkona Sen Sharma’s ‘The Mirror’ which is the most complex and satisfying segment, in an unusual melding of class and desire. Ishita (Tillotama Shome) is a classy missy who drives herself to work in a fancy office; Seema (Amruta Subhash) is the ‘bai’ who has been her (Ishita’s) housekeeper for years. During an unexpected return to the flat, she witnesses Seema in bed with a man: the unfettered passion and the sexual charge the two share becomes an irresistible magnet for Ishita, both showing up her arid life, and providing her the kind of release she seems incapable of accessing on her own.

There is one tiny angle which is not explored as smoothly here as the others, but everything else, from the voyeurism on display, the naked power play between the owner of the flat and the ‘service’ class, is wonderfully done. And as the only story which allows for characters other than the upper class, it is a saving grace of sorts: there is not one Dalit or a ‘lower caste’ representation, or another religion, in the four segments which make up these lust stories.

Lust Stories 2 cast: Kajol, Neena Gupta, Vijay Varma, Tamannaah, Mrunal Thakur, Amruta Subhash, Tillotama Shome, Kumud Mishra, Anushka Kaushik
Lust Stories 2 directors: Konkona Sen Sharma, R Balki, Amit Sharma, Sujoy Ghosh