Entertainment
oi-Oneindia Staff
What happens when four filmmakers are given the same broad territory – lust, love, intimacy and complicated relationships – but complete freedom to tell their own stories? Lust Stories 3 answers that question with four segments that rarely sound or feel alike.
And that is both the anthology’s biggest strength and, at times, its weakness.
Lust Stories 3 is a four-part anthology film featuring distinct segments by directors Vikramaditya Motwane, Kiran Rao, Shakun Batra, and Vishal Bhardwaj, exploring lust, love, and complex relationships with varied styles and interpretations of desire.
Vikramaditya Motwane kicks things off with the boldest experiment. Radhika Apte, Konkona Sensharma, Vijay Varma and Abhishek Sharma find themselves in a story built around partner swapping, presented through an unusual Korean fiction-inspired approach. It is strange, unsettling and deliberately unpredictable. Rather than making the subject straightforwardly provocative, Motwane turns it into something that demands attention.
Then comes Kiran Rao, who changes the temperature completely. Gurfateh Pirzada and Sana Thampi headline a breezy story involving drugs, money and deception. The con-game element brings humour and energy, while the narrative keeps shifting gears when you think you have worked out where it is heading.
Shakun Batra brings the anthology back to familiar emotional territory. Ali Fazal and Radhika Madan portray a marriage caught between desire, therapy, family expectations and feelings that refuse to disappear. This is less about lust itself and more about the emotional consequences that can follow it.
Vishal Bhardwaj delivers the most distinctive setting of the anthology. Set in 1987, his segment, starring Aditi Rao Hydari, Sidharth and Gajraj Rao, uses the period setting to explore sex education. The quirky references to Nux Vomica and Belladonna add a layer of eccentricity that makes the story feel unlike the other three.
The anthology format works here because the filmmakers don’t seem interested in copying one another. Every segment has its own rhythm, mood and interpretation of desire.
That said, the unevenness is noticeable. Some stories land with greater impact, while others feel like interesting ideas that could have benefited from more room to develop. But the variety keeps Lust Stories 3 from becoming repetitive.
Final Verdict: Lust Stories 3 doesn’t try to shock simply for the sake of shock. Its real appeal lies in the different ways four filmmakers interpret intimacy, desire and human relationships. It’s inconsistent in places, but sufficiently inventive and entertaining to make the journey worthwhile.
Rating: ★★★½☆ (3.5/5)
