Reviewing 2+2=❤️; Love, Sex और धोका 2

Do Aur Do Pyaar: A Smart, Sly Film About Relationships & Marriage

Shirsha Guha Thakurta's debut film walks the tightrope of love and habit, familiarity and newness, outlining a story about divorce in the cast of love. Ishita Sengupta writes.

Dir: Shirsha Guha

Cast: Vidya Balan, Pratik Gandhi

Playing in: Theatres

SHIRSHA GUHA THAKURTA's Do Aur Do Pyaar, a charmingly understated film, shares much with another charmingly understated film, Akshay Roy’s Meri Pyaari Bindu (2017). The obvious comparison is tied to a name: Suprotim Sengupta, a writer in both outings. But in spite — or maybe because of him — it is easy to imagine these two films rooted in a similar universe where the central characters vie for something common: an ideal.

In Meri Pyaari Bindu, a criminally overlooked film about the permanence of first love, the male protagonist fails to get over the one girl he had fallen for when young. Her memories follow him around like a wrong road tied to his feet. He goes through breakups and becomes a successful novelist, all the while remaining hung up on her. The filmmaker and the writers reason for the immobility of his heart by centring the narrative around the man, suggesting lightly that it has less to do with who she is and more to do with who he imagines her to be. In his mind, the girl is elevated to an ideal, inhabiting everything he wants.

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The subtext is reiterated in Do Aur Do Pyaar, an official adaptation of Azazel Jacobs’s 2017 film, The Lovers. The premise is the same: an estranged married couple trudge through life by having long-standing affairs. Both the husband and the wife are in love with other people. But, one day an innocent kiss draws them close as they transform into lovers overnight and turn the idea of cheating on your spouse on its head.

Love Sex Aur Dhokha 2: A Pulsating & Chaotic Chronicle Of Our Times

LSD 2 unfolds as a frenzied fever dream explicitly designed to ape the digital chaos we have to inhabit, and concludes with a peek into the dystopic future we are hurtling towards

Dir: Dibakar Banerjee

Cast: Nimrit Ahluwalia, Mouni Roy

Playing in: Theatres

DIBAKAR BANERJEE has been in sort of an artistic exile. His last film, Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar released mid-pandemic in 2021 after facing unending Covid-related delays. Later, it dropped on streaming just as noiselessly. In the interim, Netflix commissioned and shelved Tees — Banerjee’s new work in which he tracked three generations of an Indian family — on the grounds of it being “too risky” in the present political climate. Love Sex Aur Dhokha 2, a thematic sequel to his experimental 2010 outing, is his first feature film in three years that comes after all the beating. Given everything he has made and everything he went through, LSD 2 carries the dual burden of reputation and reaction. During its runtime, it resists succumbing to the legacy but unravels as this strange, uncontrollable beast that, in all its messiness, feels like a definite callback.

— I.S.

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Franken: An Enjoyable Ode To RPGs Of Yore

If you're looking for a game to tickle your funny bone that you can finish in a single sitting, Franken is as earnest as it is ridiculously joyful, writes Harsh Pareek

In a (gaming) landscape increasingly dominated by bloat and senseless excesses, every once in a while it is reassuring to be reminded that good things can come in bite-sized packages. Stripped down to some of the most rudimentary mechanics and storytelling, Franken is an ode to the RPGs of yore, with a humorous bent. Inspired by the likes of Final Fantasy IV, Moon RPG Remix, For the Frog the Bell Tolls and the Dragon Quest series, but unburdened by references or callbacks that might feel restricting, the game is a charming little adventure for both the uninitiated as well as the veterans of the genre.

Developed by Samanthuel Louise Gillson aka splendidland, the game follows our (rather humble) hero on a (rather straightforward) quest of fighting as many monsters as possible to become stronger in order to save the world of Fentinsenark from the clutches of the (rather annoying) Hell's Knight. On this righteous journey you encounter a wide and colourful (both literally and figuratively) cast of characters — from King Caleabe to Leopard Men, Yo-Yo Warrior, Goblins, Jellies, Three Man, Dr Heckle, (most of them exactly what they sound like) to name but a few — that is at the heart of this experience.

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