There is startling accuracy to Dibakar Banerjee's portrayal, notes Sukanya Verma.
In 2010, Dibakar Banerjee unleashed the dark powers held by hidden and handheld cameras to document its bleak but brilliant social commentary over subjects of honour killing, sex tapes and sting operation.
Raging and relevant at once, Love Sex Aur Dhokha's disquieting momentum unlocked new levels of audacity in Hindi films.
Almost one-and-a-half decade later, he returns with a spiritual sequel centred around the perverse consumption of information and its extreme expression in the digital age.
Retaining the anthology format of the first movie as well as its brutal voyeurism, Love Sex Aur Dhokha 2 shares the intertwined experiences of Noor (Paritosh Tiwari), Kulu (Bonita Rajpurohit) and Shubham (Abhinav Singh) against the backdrop of an omnipresent social media.
The troika of these compelling new actors give Love Sex Aur Dhokha 2 its rawness and edge.
A trans woman participating in a reality show, Noor is willing to grab eyeballs by Truth or Naach, as the name and nature of the programme goes, relying on Internet hustle and escalating ratings to keep its content and contenders going even if it means dragging her disoriented mom (Swaroopa Ghosh) into the farce.
Survival of the filthiest is the norm wherein intimacy and identity are fair game.
Cameos by Mouni Roy, Sophie Choudry and Tusshar Kapoor lend authenticity to the superficiality on display but it is Annu Kapoor's 'ma-sized' meltdown that comes eerily close to blurring the lines between real and recreation.
What's truly worrying is how accustomed our eyes are to such tamasha to note any satire in it.
Banerjee, along with screenwriters, Shubham and Prateek Vats (of Eeb Allay Ooo) continues to capture this societal collapse in the glaring hypocrisy and casual classism of its next segment.
It focuses on a metro employee bearing the brunt of a sexual assault complaint she made on her boss' (Swastika Mukherjee) briefly-awakened conscience's behest. Like Noor, Kulu is a transwoman wanting nothing more than to go through the day as peacefully as possible but gets thrown under the bus for it.
More than technology's function of amplifying news, it's the necessity of the medium as well as manipulating it that gets highlighted in this bleak episode.
But the LSD allusions of the title truly comes into play in the boorish imagery and provocative meltdown of influencer-cum-gamer Shubham going by the moniker of Game Paapi.
He's the kind of corrupt wolf parents warn their kids about, when venturing into the dark web of the Internet.
Under that obscene hubris attracting the likes of Uorfi Javed, Shubham has his own demons to contend with.
Between a young kid's murder over a vile meme, evils of AI and metaverse of bonkers ideology, the Dhokha aspect of Love Sex Aur Dhokha 2 is a bumbling mess of cynicism and parody.
There is startling accuracy to Dibakar Banerjee's portrayal.
Love Sex Aur Dhokha 2's gawdy demeanour and unflattering camera plays its part in calling out the rot deciding an individual's self-worth.
Mostly though, it is content being an indulgent reiteration of what we already know, woefully acknowledge or blatantly submit to.
