Lust Stories 2 Review: High-Wattage Tamannaah Sizzles, Vijay Varma Absorbs The Heat Without Melting

Lust Stories 2 Review: From the pulpy and playful to the putrid and puckered, Lust Stories 2, pretty much like its predecessor.

Tamannaah and Vijay Varma in Lust Stories 2.

Bursts and thrusts of passion - off-camera, on it or merely alluded to - are peppered across Lust Stories 2, but these paroxysms are by no means all that the four tales are about.

Two of the stories in the Netflix film centre on lust as a tool of power, a means of entrapment or an act of vengeance. This pair of tales is animated by vengeance seekers. Another segment has two women - one a corporate exec, the other a domestic help - squaring off in an unusual and searching spiral of voyeurism and arousal.

One story is set in an oneiric, beguiling little town where a chance encounter between a man and his former wife, who went missing years ago, triggers renewed but portentous ardour.

Exciting as that may sound, Lust Stories 2 does not tee off too well. The opening story (Made for Each Other, directed and co-written by R. Balki) delivers neither pleasure nor joy. A fluffy and sterile take on the centrality of good sex in a happy marriage, it steers clear of the more complex zones that the other stories
The first segment is, however, salvaged a touch by Neena Gupta as a disruptive granny who trots out refreshingly unabashed ideas about mating game rules.

Made for Each Other is about a just-engaged couple, Veda (Mrunal Thakur) and Arjun (Angad Bedi). At the behest of the girl's grandmother who believes that no marriage can survive bad sex, they decide to put their "compatibility in the bedroom" to the test before they get legally
The no-nonsense naani insists that only Mount Fuji-like eruptions would count as peak performance. While the young couple is at it - all the action takes place behind closed hotel doors - the old woman turns her attention to her 52-year-old son (Hemant Kher) and 48-year-old daughter-in-law (Kanupriya Pandit).
It is left to the film's second part, Konkona Sen Sharma's The Mirror, to turn on the heat and help Lust Stories 2 put the drab kick-off behind it. What follows are three successive segments that are significantly steamier and more
The Mirror, which examines female erogeneity in a new light, sends the film into a tangled, twisted terrain as it examines carnal pleasure and its frequently puzzling manifestations.

Isheeta is thrown off at first, unsure what to make of what she has inadvertently barged into. But she quickly begins to see what is before her eyes almost every day as an opportunity to liven up her dull, sexless life, if only by proxy.
Powered by two magnetic performances from Shome and Subhash, The Mirror maps the deepest impulses of the two women as they are drawn into a vicarious 'relationship' that stimulates them beyond their imagination and unlocks an ineffable degree of sexual frisson.

Sujoy Ghosh's Sex with Ex, starring Tamannaah Bhatia and Vijay Varma
Employing a bright colour palette that lends the backdrop the feel of a dreamscape, the story is about Vijay Chauhan (Varma), a father of two boys, who is on his way to meet a clandestine squeeze when he is summoned back to the office for a board meeting. He turn around but drives his vintage car into a tree to avoid hitting a cyclist.
A mean, tough-talking cop is not far from the scene, old habits (Vijay drinks coffee without milk, the lady tea with milk) have still not been forgotten and a befuddling brassiere size raises a question in the man's mind. Even as the conundrums multiply, sparks fly between the two.
A high-wattage Tamannaah sizzles and glows; Vijay Varma absorbs the heat without melting and even generates some of his own. The chemistry between the two actors enlivens the intriguing encounter between two people who at first flush appear to be from different planets..
Scripted by Saurabh Chaudhary and the director, the pitch-dark Tilchatta is fronted by Kajol in the role of a powerless queen of a palace and a kingdom that has clearly seen better days. Kumud Mishra plays a feudal lord who rides roughshod over women, be they in his bed or elsewhere.
Devyani Singh (Kajol), treated like a doormat by Suraj Singh (Mishra), is determined to get her own back by sending her son Ankur (Zeeshan Nadaf) to England. She hires a new cleaning lady, Rekha (Anushka Kaushik). Inevitably, the lecherous Suraj Singh begins to lust for her. The harried queen resolves to make the most of the situation in her quest for freedom for herself and her son.
From the pulpy and playful to the putrid and puckered, Lust Stories 2, pretty much like its predecessor, is a mixed bag. The storytelling isn't always lusty. But when it is, there is enough zest in here for the occasional creases not to get in the way.