LSD 2 Review: If you’ve understood this film then you are on the right track

Director: Dibakar Banerjee

Writers: Dibakar Banerjee, Shubham, Prateek Vats

Cinematographers: Anand Bansal, Riju Das, Priyashanker Ghosh

Cast: Paritosh Tiwari, Bonita Rajpurohit, Abhinav Singh

Duration: 116 minutes

Available on: Netflix

The curious case of LSD 2 is similar to “tenet” where you need someone to explain to you why it is good. This is a very polarising film in the sense that it is either deep or dumb. You will find people who absolutely love the film (which means they understand the meta of it ) and people who strongly dislike it ( they won't call it bad but will be furious or just walk out in the middle ).

Dibakar Banerjee’s LSD 2 is an Anthology consisting of three interlinked segments similar to the 1st film. While the 2010 film “LSD” had segments “Love”, “Sex”, and “Dhokha” and the theme was the camera, LSD 2’s theme is social media with segments titled “like”, “share”, and “download”.

Kamsin Kali

The movie starts with a generic music video starring Tony Kakkar which may feel like a studio interference at first but if you look deeper, it’s a parody of the new-age Bollywood item song. This music video has levels to it. First of all, it features Tony Kakkar who is one of the poster boys for this new gen terrible but viral song and somehow the team got him to parody himself. It’s like casting Sharmin Segal to play a parody of a talentless nepo-baby.

The lyrics don’t make sense and feel like they were AI-generated which is exactly the joke. It's just a collection of random rhyming words that are very double-meaning-ish on a melodic beat that sounds absolutely unoriginal. There are these sexual moans used as samples in the beat which is a direct parody to songs like “Aafat from Ligar” and other similar songs.

The music video is shot in a typical music video fashion in terms of lighting and camera movements. Tony Kakkar’s look is a parody of a bunch of Kartik Aaryan music videos like bhool bhulaiya 2 title track, character dheela 2.0, and kaala jaadu to name a few. The female background dancer's costumes are straight-up Kendall Jenner parodies and finally, the choreography and the hook steps are also very meta on again some Kartik Aaryan style moves.

Like

The first segment of the movie tells the story of Noor, a transgender influencer set in this reality show called truth ya naach, a parody of jio cinema’s big boss ott, hotstar’s dance + pro and similar shows. Technically the film is phenomenal in the depiction of these shows, the editing style and camera work are replicated to the T.

The show is hosted by Mouni Roy who has actually hosted a talk of the town realty show called temptation island india, the judges of truth ya naach are Anu Malik who is parading himself, Tusshar Kapoor and Sophie Choudry are a meta-commentary on unemployed stars now judging reality shows.

The conversation on the LSD film was that it was ahead of its time and if you look at the themes of that movie today then it's quite normal. It tackled the topics of vlogging / behind-the-scenes footage, honour killings, MMS Leaks, and sting operations.

In today's day and age, all of these are not surprising at all. Similarly, I would say LSD 2 is more or less 12 months ahead of its time, the reality show introduces Noor’s mother inside the house for TRP and big boss has already done it several times like Elvish Yadav crying on her mom’s reaction in season 2 of big boss ott. We already have popular trans influencers like Trinetra and Ella D’ Verma to name a few, it's not far away that these influencers are called for big boss or similar shows.

My point is, the “Like” segment may feel uncomfortable or rubbish to some viewers now but it's only a matter of time before it becomes yesterday's news.

Also, I wish they called it Live instead because of the 24x7 live show format.

Share

I personally did not enjoy the second segment, I felt it was very out of place for me in terms of the theme which “Like” and “Download” incorporated very well. Shares tells the story of Kullu played by an actual transgender actress Bonita Rajpurohit making her the first of her community to have a theatrical release.

The segment tackles the themes of organisations employing transgender community but the issue is that the narrative tries to show both the perspectives of the corporate and the struggles of making a living as a trans citizen in this society. If only it had stuck to one side of the story or at least focused on one it would have been clear.

Maybe even I am not fully mature enough to understand the narrative angles yet but it's very clear that this segment is out of place. While every scene in the whole movie is a meta-commentary, this segment alone goes south. It’s not about whether it is good or bad but rather doesn’t fit the theme and zone of the movie.

And the end of the segment there is a dialogue in this segment which will make you really uncomfortable. You don’t expect the story to take such a dark turn and justify sex work.

If you were a little uncomfortable by the first segment then this one will definitely make you question “what am I watching” “why am I still watching”. It's definitely a tough ride but if you stick till the end of this segment, you are in for a treat because the last segment is wild.

Download

LSD 2 is the first bollywood movie to crack an authentic youtuber / gamer character. While all the mainstream movies and shows make a mockery out of representing youtubers, the Carryminati cameo in “Runway 34” with him holding a mobile on a selfie stick is one of those examples.

Download is the final and the most well-made segment of the film, tells the story of Gamepaapi ( yes that’s a username ) played by Abhinav Singh and what a performance it was. The amount of research done for this is very impressive and I would say Download is a must-watch segment.

The narrative deals with the themes of live streaming, deep fakes, cyberbullying, brand deals, and the metaverse. This segment is terrifyingly real, the only part that feels dystopian is the ending but the fact that Apple Vision Pro and Meta Quest are a thing now just tells you how close those days are.

Without beating around the bush, the ending of Download is that Gamepaapi goes missing in real life but he is a symbol of peace in the digital VR world ( metaverse ). Now, this was a little confusing for me as in what is the message which actually was answered by Dibakar himself in an interview saying that it was a reference to those criminals who out of nowhere become brokers of religion. Gamepaapi was a very misogynistic and internet-corrupt teenager who is now after the panic attack suddenly a personality with a deep understanding of mankind and the greater plans of the universe…that is straight up a Baba story arc.

The Connection

The one event that affects all three segments is the death of a schoolboy. The media coverage is fully focused on the murder, sidelining Noor’s finale week of truth ya naach which leads to her elimination.

The antagonist’s son from the second segment is a close friend of the schoolboy and the incident triggers her affects her action on the Kullu situation.

Gamepaapi is directly connected with the kid as he is in the same school and the kid trolled him IRL eventually leading to a police investigation on paapi which also is a major trigger for his panic attack.

Gulabi Ankhiyan

The movie ends with another music video, quite common with any mainstream hindi film but this song is a making of a music video starring Gamepaapi and another female influencer which is a meta-commentary on youtubers appearing in typical romantic music videos. Every major ex-tiktoker has been featured in romantic music videos like @mr_faisu_07 and Jannat Zubair to name a few.

Basically, the film makes a meta-commentary on various by-products of the post-Jio era from “big boss”, “splitsvilla” to “Hum Toh Deewane” type music videos.

Note: I highly recommend you check out Dibakar Banerjee’s spoiler interview with Sucharita Tyagi.