The first Lust Stories created many waves with its highly decorated shorts, but unfortunately the sequel wasn’t able to match that same bar set before. Lust Stories 2, once more, features four shorts directed by four different directors that focuses on the theme of lust. Having a star cast of actors like Kajol, Tamannaah Bhatia, Vijay Varma, Neena Gupta and more, the shorts are filled varied tones and characters that help pop these stories to life. Lust Stories 2 Review: Tamannaah Bhatia, Vijay Varma, Kajol's Netflix Anthology Receives Mixed Reactions From Critics, Konkona Sensharma Garners Praise.

The main issue with Lust Stories 2 is that it offers one great story that’s cobbled with another that’s just decent and two more that are extremely mediocre. The stories themselves don’t have a common ground within themselves, and the consistency levels between the stories are just way apart. So, with the release of Lust Stories 2, lets rank all the four shorts from worst to best.

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Sex with Ex

A Still From Lust Stories 2 (Photo Credits: Netflix)

The worst out of the bunch and an effort that feels amateurish, Sujay Ghosh’s Sex with Ex (if there ever was a more corny name) follows Vijay Varma’s Vijay have his car crash in the middle of nowhere and end up in a village where he finds his ex-wife Shanti (Tamannaah Bhatia), who had disappeared mysteriously in the past, alive and well living a normal life. The worst aspect here is that the story itself is just so far apart from the tone of Lust Stories 2 that it just feels like a thriller that comes out of nowhere. It also packs in a twist that is meant to be taken seriously, but it just came across as extremely hilarious.

Made for Each Other

A Still From Lust Stories 2 (Photo Credits: Netflix)

R Balki’s Made for Each Other has an element of humour to it, but what it lacks is a sense of maturity. The one thing I appreciated about it is that it does try to create a sex-positive discourse, however, what it ultimately fails at is executing it with dialogue that often comes across as very juvenile, which was just something I couldn’t take seriously. Neena Gupta, thankfully, is able to make the entire ordeal entertaining playing the hilarious and grumpy grandmom trying to be a matchmaker for her granddaughter.

Tilchatta

A Still From Lust Stories 2 (Photo Credits: Netflix)

Amit Sharma’s Tilchatta takes us to rural India where Kajol plays Chanda, a woman tired of her husband constantly abusing her and wanting a better life for her son, and in its initial message the short is impactful. Where it does go awry though is in its ending, where Tilchatta tries to put forward a twist that just feels like a disservice to the story told before. It’s extremely bleak in the sense where you don’t necessarily receive a payoff, and it did let down a mostly decent short that was boosted by Kajol’s talents.

The Mirror

A Still From Lust Stories 2 (Photo Credits: Netflix)

Coming to the final short, Konkana Sen Sharma’s The Mirror by far stands way above the rest. Starring Tillotama Shome as Ishita, an upper-class woman living in Mumbai, the short follows her discovering that her maid Sima (Amruta Subhash) sneaks in her husband into her house everyday and fornicates with him in the bed while she is not home. Getting obsessed by watching them having sex everyday by sneaking into the house early, Ishita starts pleasuring herself to them as well. Sen Sharma just puts out a narrative that is so out there and plays on absurdist humour that I couldn’t help but respect it. It provides great themes about class disparity and a sense of loneliness, and this was something that I really appreciated about it. Lust Stories 2 Movie Review: Kajol, Konkona Sen Sharma Shine in Netflix’s Rather Lackluster Anthology Film (LatestLY Exclusive).

Lust Stories 2 is playing on Netflix right now.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 30, 2023 01:05 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).