Shomini Sen

Lust Stories, right from the beginning, when the first part was released in 2020, raised eyebrows. Since then, several other similar films and series have come up on OTT- all exploring female sexual desires- some landed, some did not, but the charm of Lust Stories and subsequently of Lust Stories 2 has had a different effect on the audience. How many mainstream filmmakers have attempted to explore what women want and ultimately got it right? In Lust Stories 3, filmmakers Vikramaditya Motwane, Kiran Rao, Shakun Batra and Vishal Bhardwaj speak of Lust, an emotion that often brings out the best and worst in any human being.

When Mirzapur: The Movie was announced, I have to admit I was sceptical. The film, an extension of the hugely popular web series Mirzapur, was supposed to take audiences back in time, somewhere in the middle of the first season. Loyal audiences of the series have, over the years, already progressed a lot into the Mirzapur universe. Some key characters are now long dead in the series, and the trajectories of Munna, Guddu, Golu, and Kaleen Bhaiyaa have also taken very different turns. Was it necessary to make a movie and go back to the origin story again, I wondered. Happy to report that my doubts and scepticism were pleasantly put to rest as I watched Mirzapur the movie. The film takes you back in time, somewhere in the middle of the first season and introduces new characters and adds a fresh twist to the story. The result is a deeply engaging story of power and greed, but also of validation and fighting for love.

Human trafficking, a grim reality of our present time, has become a favourite theme for Bollywood. After Mardaani and Delhi Crime Season 2, Netflix’s new film Gandhari, featuring Taapsee Pannu, delves into the same theme. Written by Kanika Dhillon and directed by Devashish Makhija, Gandhari has Pannu playing a blind mother in search of her missing daughter in a fictitious town in Bengal. While looking for her daughter, she stumbles upon a larger network of child trafficking. And while the premise of Gandhari is very real and thus makes for an engaging thriller, in reality, the film’s execution makes it falter ever so often.

There are very few films that live up to their title, and Geetu Mohandas’ latest directorial venture, Toxic: A Fairy Tale For Grown Ups, is one of them. The film is more toxic than your red-flag ex and more a tale of horror than a fairy tale, even for grown-ups. Featuring Yash in an all-encompassing role, Toxic numbs you from the very beginning with its over-the-top drama, VFX, and too much screeching. Nothing in the film is subtle; everything and everyone is loud. And with a plot that is hard to fathom, Toxic feels a bit too much- much like its crowded star cast.

India’s independence from British rule came at a price. As the British left India, they ravaged and divided the country - emotionally, based on religion and geographically. The happiness of independence was far less on 15 August 1947, as so many families were destroyed; people were separated from their loved ones, their homes, and their motherland. The Partition led to the birth of Pakistan but also to a great Hindu-Muslim divide, an enmity that continues to this day between the two countries. Bollywood has made innumerable stories on India’s Independence and the partition. Most have narrated stories of brutality and riots that preceded partition. Filmmaker Rajkumar Santoshi’s latest release, Batwara 1947, flips the narrative a bit- telling the story of a Muslim family in Lahore in the aftermath of partition. Santoshi teams up with Sunny Deol, with whom he has delivered iconic films like Damini, Ghatak and more. Deol and Santoshi collaborate after decades, making Batwara 1947 special. The film also features Shabana Azmi, marks Preity Zinta’s comeback to Bollywood after a long time and has Aamir Khan as the producer. With such impressive names attached to the project, expectations are bound to be high for Batwara 1947. So, does it deliver? Let’s find out.

The Kargil War remains one of the most crucial and difficult wars that Indian forces fought and won. Since then, numerous films and shows have highlighted the valour of the Indian Army, who bravely reclaimed key peaks in the Kargil sector from the Pakistani army, but not much is known about the role that the Indian Air Force played in the war. Netflix’s new series, Operation Safed Sagar, retells an important chapter in history where the IAF fought in the toughest and highest altitudes in history and successfully bombed key hideouts of the Pakistani army in the Kargil and Drass sector, thereby enabling the Indian Army to capture the peaks for India.

Not so long back, post the release of Avengers: Endgame, the world declared it was suffering from superhero fatigue. As Marvel Studios churned out stand alone shows of all its characters- heroes, side heroes and villains alike- and introduced new superheroes on screen, the audience felt jaded watching the same stories. Clearly, Marvel Studios took note of the fatigue, reassessed its content and then reinvented a new template. Films like Thunderbolts and the series Loki have all attempted to explore the inner demons more than villains in physical form. Thus, MCU’s latest Spider-Man: Brand New Day fits right into the same framework where the friendly neighbourhood superhero is no longer a funny, slightly reckless but humorous high schooler, but a grown-up man, fighting loneliness and warding off evil from New York City in equal measures. Tom Holland returns as the web-slinging superhero along with his wife, actress Zendaya, who plays MJ and Jacob Batalon as his buddy Ned Leeds. But the trio, unlike the previous films, are not together anymore thanks to Doctor Strange setting things differently in No Way Home.

Vikrant Massey’s Musafir Cafe, a slow romance drama, comes at a time when there is anger on the streets of India and spy thrillers and murder mysteries are dominating screens- big and small. The eight-part series, produced by Massey, who also plays the lead in the show, takes a practical approach to modern-day relationships, where love alone is not enough to make a relationship work. It reiterates that timing is everything, and that two right people can drift apart if the timing is not right. Created and written by Sharanya Rajgopal and based on Divya Prakash Dubey’s novel of the same name, Musafir Cafe is refreshing, real and breaks the clutter of action thrillers that have been releasing of late.