Bittersweet!

Love Sex aur Dhokha review
Rating: **** 1/2
While coming out of the theater after the film had ended, I overheard a group of friends who clearly did not have a good time watching it. They cribbed "Abey kya bakwaas picture thi..". Ouch!. That hurt. Dibakar's Love Sex aur dhokha" is sure to evoke extreme reactions-some would like it, but some would find this experiment sheer "bakwaas". "Love Sex or Dhokha" or "LSD", as it is more commonly known as, is an important film for Indian cinema. The narrative, the dizzy camerawork(hand-held cameras, spy video cams, security cams-you name it) are, initially, not easy for most to get accustomed to .And as far as I know, "Love Sex aur Dhokha" is the first hindi film to have such a non-linear narrative. But please..please have some patience and you can relish its beautiful impact. You have three different stories, each starting off with an old-style bollywood poster and a b-grade sleazy title, the sort of title that dominated Bollywood for most of 70's and 80'S. Sample this-one of the stories is scandalously though aptly titled "Paap ki Dukaan".
Let me not get into the contents of these 3 different, yet beautifully interlinked, stories-all I can say is that these are stories about you and me. About characters that you would have seen, met, ignored,ridiculed. About the hero in us, the voyeur in us, the monster in us-it is not about those larger-than-life Ranchos(Aamir Khan, 3 idiots) or Rizwaans(Shah Rukh Khan, MNIK) of the suger-coated world of Bollywood that we have so often on the celluloid. Your heart melts when the "sting" journalist gently responds to why he has to hear his boss' shit. He replies-"Kyunki main useless hoon..". Or for that dusky tall store girl described by her colleague as "Kaali Behenji".
The actors, well, do not act. Natural to the core, they are unfamiliar faces and bring in the rawness that is just so vital to tell these "real" stories. The sting journalist, the punjabi pop-star, the frustrated store guy-they are all believable characters. The maker of "Khosla ka Ghosla" and "Oye Lucky Lucky Oye", Dibakar is one of the most daring film-makers that we have in our country-his "Love Sex aur Dhokha" could have been an experiment gone wrong-but thankfully, he and his team get most things right and the result is a sad, disturbing, satirical take on urban middle-class India. It is one of the best hindi movies that I have seen in years. I strongly recommend that you go and see it at least once.