Lust Stories

Plot

Four short segments are presented linearly, each depicting sex and relationships inside a repressed society (director’s names in parenthesis).

1: Open marriage (Anurag Kashyap)

Kalindi is a college professor locked in a long-distance marriage with an older, more sexually-experienced husband, Mihir, who lives abroad. Encouraged to build her own sexual history separate from him, Kalindi engages in a casual encounter with Tejas, a virginal male student. Fearing attachment, she sidelines him while simultaneously pursuing a 'monogamous' relationship with a colleague, Neeraj. Neeraj and Kalindi have awkward sex, causing her to abruptly terminate their relationship. She attempts to insert herself back into Tejas' life, despite him moving on to a new romance with his classmate, Natasha. Consumed by jealousy, Kalindi tracks the couple to sabotage their private moments. This culminates in her breaking into Tejas' apartment, where she finds him alone. Misinterpreting her erratic behaviour as a sign of affection, Tejas promises to abandon Natasha to be with her. Seeing him available again, Kalindi reveals that she’s married and rejects him, leaving him again in a confused state.

2: Sex with the maid (Zoya Akhtar)

Ajit is a bachelor who shares a physical relationship with his housemaid, Sudha. Their interactions usually involve them having sex on his bed, after which Sudha resumes her house-cleaning duties. Despite their dissimilar backgrounds, Sudha secretly harbours romantic interest in Ajit. This changes when Ajit’s parents arrive to stay with him. Ajit and Sudha avoid interacting in their presence. Later, his parents host another similarly middle-class family who bring a marriage proposal for Ajit with their daughter. As the parents chat in the living room, Ajit spends time with his prospective fiancée in his room. Sudha spies them sitting close together on his bed, as Ajit initiates intimacy between them to build camaraderie. Confronted with the abrupt end of their relationship, Sudha finishes her chores. Before she leaves, Ajit’s mother passes out sweets to celebrate Ajit's engagement and Sudha accepts one.

3: An extramarital affair (Dibakar Banerjee)

Reena is a corporate banker trapped in a stagnant marriage with her husband, Salman. For three years, she has maintained a deeply emotional, clandestine extramarital affair with Salman’s closest friend, Sudhir. The stability of their secret is threatened during one of Reena's visits to Sudhir's residence, where Sudhir reveals that a suspicious Salman has voiced concerns regarding his wife's potential infidelity. Panic ensues, prompting a resolute Reena to suggest that they confess the truth to Salman so they can finally live together openly. She is deeply disheartened by Sudhir’s defensive reaction, as he clearly views abandoning his social circle and betraying his friend as an impossibility.

Taking matters into her own hands, Reena summons Salman to Sudhir's home. She directly confronts her husband, stating that she is profoundly unhappy in their marriage and feels reduced to a maternal caretaker for his children rather than a romantic partner. Once she confesses the three-year duration of her affair with Sudhir, a devastated Salman breaks down, begging her to remain with the family for the sake of their children. Wrapped in immense guilt and emotional exhaustion, Reena yields; later that evening, she and Salman engage in a grief-stricken sexual encounter. The following morning, Reena meets Sudhir one final time to sever ties. She informs him that Salman is fully aware of the betrayal and demands the termination of the affair, but explicitly instructs Sudhir that he must never let Salman know that they are aware of his discovery. Terminating the relationship permanently, Reena departs alongside her husband.

4: Self-satisfaction (Karan Johar)

Megha is a school teacher who is newly married to Paras, an office worker. Although Paras is doting and attentive, he finishes prematurely during sex and fails to satisfy her. Megha’s dissatisfaction is exacerbated by the family’s pressure that she bear a child soon. Megha confides in her colleague, Rekha, who suggests using a remote-controlled vibrator. Megha brings home the device and starts experimenting with it. Before she can climax, she is distracted by a commotion in the living room and leaves the device inside her. Paras' grandmother discovers the remote control and starts fiddling with it. The device increases in intensity, causing Megha to experience a highly visible orgasm in front of her in-laws. Scandalized, Paras' mother demands the couple divorce. A month later, the two meet secretly at a cafe after living separately. Unwilling to legally separate, Paras accepts to pay more attention to Megha's physical needs as well if they are to reconcile. They share a quiet moment of hope together over ice cream.

Cast

Radhika Apte as Kalindi Dasgupta (Segment 1)

Akash Thosar as Tejas Bhave

Ridhi Khakhar as Natasha Thakral

Randeep Jha as Neeraj Choudhry

Varadha as Mihir Dasgupta

Bhumi Pednekar as Sudha Maheshwari (Segment 2)

Neil Bhoopalam as Ajit Khanna

Nikita Dutta as Rukmini Sonkari

Rasika Duggal as Sonalika Atiharan

Manisha Koirala as Reena Bahl (Segment 3)

Jaideep Ahlawat as Sudhir

Sanjay Kapoor as Salman Ahmed Bahl

Kiara Advani as Megha Upadhyay (Segment 4)

Vicky Kaushal as Paras Upadhyay

Neha Dhupia as Rekha

Production

Lust Stories is developed as a sequel to the 2013 anthology film Bombay Talkies. It has been co-produced by Ronnie Screwvala and Ashi Dua under the label of their respective production companies RSVP and Flying Unicorn Entertainment. The four segments of the anthology film have been directed by Anurag Kashyap, Zoya Akhtar and Dibakar Banerjee and Karan Johar respectively.

Release

The international distribution rights for Lust Stories were acquired by Netflix. The film was released on Netflix on 15 June 2018.

Soundtrack

The film score was composed and one song was guest-composed by Sameer Uddin, while rest of the songs were composed by Amit Trivedi, Tanishk-Vayu and Prateek Kuhad.

The lyrics were written by Shellee, Kumar Suryavanshi, Prateek Kuhad and Tanishk-Vayu.

Reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 100% of 12 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.3/10.

Critics praised the film's portrayal of women and its exploration of female sexuality, a subject which has been rarely dealt with in Indian films. Film critic Alaka Sahani used the metaphor of a woman's body is draped in a dupatta while discussing the sheltered sexuality of women in general, a theme that took a central position in the narrative; she praised the handling of the subject matter as clinical in the subversion of such regressive stereotypes associated with women who have an active sex life as the presumably amorous "vamps" in the Indian film industry. Kiara Advani's masturbation scene in the film, using a vibrator, was praised for its frank portrayal of women's sexuality.

Mridula R of The News Minute echoed the sentiment as she praised the film's novelty in the honest portrayal of women, their "liberation, thoughts, [and] decisions". Others were also appreciative of the "glorious women [who] stubbornly and strikingly hold the reins" and the "sometimes not likeable, but definitely relatable women who usually elude our screens". Commentators responded positively to subtlety in the film's use of female protagonists; they were especially impressed by the fact that all of the stories had female protagonists "without being obnoxious about it", how they were wielded "to tell stories from a uniquely different perspective" and how it is a befitting slap on the face of India's morality preachers as an extremely contemporary take on — not sex in India — but on the majority's perception on how it must be represented in culture.

Sequel

Lust Stories 2 is a 2023 Indian Hindi-language anthology film, second installment of Lust Stories, consisting of four short film segments directed by R Balki, Konkona Sen Sharma, Amit Ravindernath Sharma and Sujoy Ghosh. Co-produced by Ronnie Screwvala of RSVP and Ashi Dua of Flying Unicorn Entertainment, the film has an ensemble cast including Tamannaah Bhatia, Kajol, Mrunal Thakur, Amruta Subhash, Angad Bedi, Kumud Mishra, Neena Gupta, Tillotama Shome, Vijay Varma and others.

Lust Stories 3 is an upcoming Indian Hindi-language anthology film, third installment of Lust Stories, consisting of four short film segments directed by Vikramaditya Motwane, Kiran Rao, Shakun Batra and Vishal Bhardwaj. Co-produced by Ronnie Screwvala of RSVP and Ashi Dua of Flying Unicorn Entertainment, the film has an ensemble cast including Radhika Apte, Konkona Sen Sharma, Vijay Varma, Abhishek Banerjee, Gurfateh Pirzada, Sana Thampi, Ali Fazal, Radhika Madan, Aditi Rao Hydari and Siddharth and others.