Lust Stories

Lust Stories is a combination of the vision of the four brilliant film makers we have in India right now. It's not a flawless film, just like we humans are not flawless. My personal favourite among the four films was the one made by Zoya Akhtar, a beautiful coming of age story which shows the prevalent class discrimination in our society. When a maid shows Bhumi Pednekar's Character (also a maid) a Salwar which was given to her as a gift by her employer only to find that it has a hole in it. The maid still refers to it as 'perfect' and proposes to wear it at her sister's wedding. The film by Anurag Kashyap seems to be a little bit too long though the character Kalindi played beautifully by Radhika Apte is one of the most complex women we might have ever seen in Hindi Cinema. The film by Dibakar Bannerjee featuring Manisha Koirala in the lead shows the story of a night and how three people realises life has more meaning to it. Finally the surprise was the film by Karan Johar's film on how a woman has to seek pleasure in a marriage when her husband thinks him having a good time is equivalent to her having a good time as well. This film features a particularly very hilarious scene which will make it difficult for you to watch K3G with your family ever again. All in all it's refreshing to see that all the 4 films are told from a woman's perspective, about time right ?

Heard a lot about it early this summer and today I finally decided to watch it. So here is my review. It has four individual stories of women are involved or want to be involved in a relationship and we are shown how and what they feel as their stories unfold.

From a technical standpoint, all the four stories have great amount of work involved. The character development is very good, the art and sound are just right. There are small and healthy doses of humor added which is enjoyable. The choice of actors for the roles is appropriate and each of them have played the roles perfectly.

From a deeper perspective, although it is intended to be for matured and highly educated audience who are possibly upper middle class and from high society, this film is hollow in that none of the stories narrated have a moral/lesson. They are worth watching once but not that worthy to come back for more. I was sitting pondering how each story was connected, was there a hidden secret, a deep rooted meaning or an easter egg for me to think about. Sadly (it may be only me), I couldn't find any. When one story ends, I felt I learned nothing from it except the third one with some really good storyline. Except for being good looking visual art pieces nothing is really conveyed that the audience can go back to.

Maybe it was intended for that. A good coffee movie about relationships for women and matured audiences can watch once and go about their lives again. Maybe they were designed such that we could find a character which we could identify with and see our feelings through them. Or just like reading a book of short relationship stories. I don't know.

It is an anthology of 4 short films. But only the first and last one directed by Anurag Kashyap and Karan Johar fits in the bill. The remaining two are boring and drab. The theme of all 4 short films revolves around lust but doesn't leave an impact after watching. It could have been better and entertaining. A decent one-time watchable in Netflix.

There comes a film every once in a while that tries too hard to convey a message but falls flat on its own face mostly due to a lack of substantial content and heavy doses of embellishments. Netflix's Lust Stories is one such anthology film with four 30-minute stories that aspire to break taboos associated with women's sexuality but are, in fact, purveyors of nonsense. Except for Karan Johar and Anurag Kashyap hitting one or two right chords with their stories about vaginal pleasure and emotional attachment respectively, Lust Stories gasps for freshness and logic. While Johar's young housewife (Kiara Advani) is dissatisfied with her husband's performance on bed and so looks for external stimuli in a righteous way, Kashyap's teacher (Radhika Apte) is obsessed with a youngster who she had a poontang with despite telling him herself to not take it to the heart. Zoya Akhtar comes in third with her excellently acted trash about a housemaid (Bhumi Pednekar) taken for granted by her bachelor employer after they engage in some nasty sex. There's not even a sprinkle of inference you can gather from the story other than the subtle performance by the cast which also include Neil Bhoopalam. Dibakar Banerjee certainly did not get the memo as his story looks like a nonsensical excerpt from an awful book. Manisha Koirala takes cues from Banerjee to take marital decisions for her character while enjoying the mess she has made the lives of two men and vice versa. (I mean it, don't tell me otherwise.) The music and overall cast performance is good and high-energy, thanks to Netflix, but the content seems like it was concocted just to frame it with the word 'feminism' and then sent for human consumption. I get it when Johar tries to highlight the importance of women's sexuality but it does not have to be forced, just like the little humor that Lust Stories overall boasts of. Don't waste your time unless you want to have a look at how the actors look when they act 'it'. TN.

Four very different directors explore four very different shades of lust in Lust Stories, though the common ground in each is the theme of female desire, as it attempts to cut through the strait-jackets of morality, patriarchy and class.

The anthology begins with Anurag Kashyap's film, where in the very first scene, the protagonist Kalindi (Radhika Apte) is leaning out of a cab window, as it zips down the road. She's carefree, liberated, and en-route to a one-night-stand. Next to her is the visibly younger and visibly nervous Tejas (Akash Thosar). Once they're in his room, he tries to keep up with her - intellectually and sexually - as she mocks his Chetan Bhagat book collection and teases him about his lack of sexual experience. She doesn't just take charge in bed, but also his virginity.

Hereon the power dynamic between them gets murkier, as Akash happens to be Kalindi's student. Kalindi - the one ostensibly in power and often abusing it - also often seems to be the one without it, with both Tejas and her 12-years-older husband Mihir, who is encouraging her to "explore her sexuality". Radhika brings out this dichotomy of her character flawlessly, and Akash matches her performance perfectly as the clueless Tejas, who has no choice but to go along on this ride.

Zoya Akhtar's film opens with Sudha (Bhumi Pednekar) and Ajit (Neil Bhoopalam) in the throes of passion. Their intimacy devolves immediately after, when Sudha drops down on her knees to maaro pauncha. It's like the chasm of class between them splits wide open the second they are clothed, and she's revealed to be his maid. The divide gets starker still, when Ajit's parents drop into his bachelor pad to fix his rishta, or when she's asked to prepare tea for his prospective in-laws and fiancee.

It isn't so much the characters, as the choreography of Zoya Akhtar's scenes that do the talking. The family members crammed in the drawing room, shifting seats, lifting up their feet as Sudha sweeps the floor. The sounds of Ajit's father in the bathroom, flushing the pot, as Sudha irons their clothes in the room next to it. Sudha-Ajit's a sexual intimacy may seem almost deviant in a society such as theirs, yet there's a daily intimacy that plays out between the family and their domestic help, that's barely acknowledged, except in the form of gifts such as leftover mithais and slightly-ripped-kurtas. When the characters do speak, they only ever seem to indulge in small talk, be it Ajit's parents and their prospective in-laws' mind-numbing conversation on the difference between their Diwali celebrations, or even the maid-next-door gossiping with Sudha about the woman she works for. The banality of the topics seem to masquerade as normality, and the only thing that pierces through these layers of hypocrisy is Sudha's desire. Be it the acting, directing, sets or sound - this is a film that says a lot, without saying much at all.

"Kaisi lag rahi hoon?" Reena (Manisha Koirala) asks Sudhir (Jaideep Ahlawat), as she emerges from the waves in a swimsuit, in the first scene of Dibakar Banerjee's film. "Do bachchon ki maa," replies Sudhir, setting the tone for the story ahead.

Reena is married to Sudhir's best friend Salman (Sanjay Kapoor), and the two have been having an affair behind the latter's back for the past three years. Some of this has to do with the fact that Reena's identity seems to have dwindled down to "do bacchon ki maa" over the years. Or teen bachche, if you count Salman ("You want a mother, not a wife," she chides him at one point). Yet, her affair barely lets her escape from that identity either. When she suggests to Sudhir at one point, that they tell Salman about them, he asks her, "what about the children?". "Why does everyone bring up my children, when I am talking about my happiness?" she retorts.

The awkward dynamics between the trio play out at Sudhir's beach house, when they are forced to confront (or may be not) the crossroads each of them are at. All three actors have given complex, layered performances - Sanjay Kapoor, as the husband who can't see beyond Reena as the "wife, mother, hostess" package, and him as the providor of her "allowances"; Manisha as the fed-up, and now conscience-less wife, who has no qualms about playing the two friends against each other; and Jaideep, a jaded lover and dubious best friend, who's only interested in maintaining status quo.

Karan Johar doesn't let go of any of his Karan Johar-isms in his film, be it the elaborate costumes, music or even a wedding sequence. The story - that revolves around Megha (Kiara Advani) a newlywed who has to come to terms with fact that her husband is a major disappointment in bed - is an exploration of female desire, and how it is stifled, policed, controlled or ignored. Subtle isn't KJo's forte, and so, the film often ends up carrying a public service announcement-type quality. What works is the acting. Kiara Advani, who plays Megha - the bahu-next-door seeking sexual satisfaction, balances the OTT script and settings with a performance that is just-right. Vicky Kaushal is endearing as Paras, the fumbling husband-lover. Neha Dhupia impresses too, as the risque-blouse-wearing divorcee who likes to pleasure herself in libraries and encourages Kiara to explore her sexuality. Much ado has been made about the Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham 'climax' sequence, which is, well, amusing and self aware. Still, the film sticks out more than it fits in with anthology.