'Lust Stories' review: Bhumi Pednekar-Kiara Advani are a delight to watch in this Netflix original

Lust Stories (Drama)

Cast: Bhumi Pednekar, Manisha Koirala, Vicky Kaushal, Radhika Apte, Neha Dhupia, Sanjay Kapoor among others

Direction: Anurag Kashyap, Zoya Akhtar, Dibakar Banerjee, Karan Johar

Duration: 2 hrs 32secs

Language: Hindi/English 

Story: The various facets of love, sex and relationship are what the filmmakers set out to explore with this film. While Anurag's film has a married woman (Radhika Apte) step outside her marital boundaries to explore the world, Zoya's story is about a maid (Bhumi Pednekar) who realises the bias that exists in society. While infidelity is Dibakar's chosen theme with Manisha Koirala playing a woman bored of her husband (Sanjay Kapoor) and seeking solace in a friend (Jaideep Ahlawat), Karan's film is about a woman (Kiara Advani) left unsatiated with her wham-bam-thank-you-mam husband (Vicky Kaushal). 

Review: Bombay Talkies that released in 2013, gave the viewers a chance to see someone as understated and subtle as Dibakar Banerjee share the same platform with someone like Karan Johar, known for his larger than life stories and characters, along with Zoya and Anurag. In Lust Stories, the filmmakers come together yet again to make an anthology about lust and its various avatars. Do the stories work on an individual level as well as come together as a whole? Yes and no. 

On an individual level, all the four stories have their defining moments - moments that you will take back with you as an audience. 

In the first story, directed by Anurag, Radhika Apte's character, who had got married to her first boyfriend, has been permitted by her husband to explore relationships. While she does step out of her marital boundaries and gets obsessive about a younger man (Akash Thosar), and often speaks to the camera to voice out her feelings, her character never really rises above the surface. 

It is Zoya's nuanced story about a maid and her master, that shows that one doesn't need page fulls of dialogues for a character to convey the theme. Bhumi Pednekar barely has a dialogue or two but it's her body language and expressions (and yes, even her chipped nail polish) that help the viewer see her character's journey from realisation to acceptance of her situation. 

The third story revolves around infidelity, and Dibakar infuses his characters - Manisha Koirala, Jaideep Ahlawat, and Sanjay Kapoor - with a certain identifiability and you find yourselves drawn towards each of them in turn. It's difficult to side with any one of them, and that's the director's biggest achievement here. 

The last story didn't really need Karan Johar's name to appear before it. Right from the pun-intended dialogues to the cleavage-baring sari-clad teachers, this one has the filmmaker's stamp all over it. And although the theme of a woman and her desire for pleasure is well-brought out, the over-explanation that the director feels the need to indulge in only highlights the nuanced subtlety of the earlier stories. So while it does make for an interesting watch on its own, it stands apart from the others in terms of treatment. 

Stories like these need performances to match and boy, do the actors deliver! Kiara Advani and Bhumi Pednekar are a delight to watch, giving in whole-heartedly to their roles. Akash Thosar as the vulnerable young man who Radhika gets obsessive about, too, is an actor to watch out for. Manisha Koirala and Sanjay Kapoor make you wish you saw more of them on the big screen, while Vicky Kaushal once again shows that while he can win accolades for his understanding husband act in Raazi, he can be just as believable as a clueless one here. 

In Lust Stories, the directors have a huge field to play around in and they make the most of it. They prove that lust, after all, is yet another expression of love.  

Critics Rating: 3.5/5