“Continue the story” or “Pass the story”, you might have heard of this game. You can see how it plays out as a movie if you end up watching Stree 2. It’s a game in which one person starts a story and thereafter people take turns to continue the story with a line or two. A lot of fun, but a movie it makes not. And no, just in case you read that wrong, Stree 2 is the opposite of a lot of fun.

Anyway, let’s hope the next one goes back to Stree’s writers.

Ok, I lie. Along with the beginning in this game of “continue the story”, the writers had the end ready too. So, they had to reach that end somehow as they played along. Or, that’s how it felt. And that end is leading to another episode that promises an army of well-meaning monsters.

The disappointing bit is that this is such an exciting prospect! A Hindi film franchise of sorts with a universe that is haunted by spirits at war—some disgruntled, some helpful. The former holds real-world mere-humans hostage. What fun!

But, there has to be a better way of coming up with the plot and sub-plot. Better than the slapstick we see here; better than the chillum-chilli, the cacophony on display here; better than the misuse of ace-rate actors.

Yes, I doubt this is arguable—Rajkummar Rao, Pankaj Tripathi, Aparshakti Khurana, and Abhishek Banerjee—all of them definitely deserve better character writing, and equally emphatically a better story. The glaringly missing name there of course is Shraddha Kapoor. Have we seen her in a role that challenges her beyond the average?

But that is a problem for later, right? This one has a lot of things to be fixed before we get to whether or not the lead lady can be a better actor. Other than the story and its writing, a huge one is in the song department too.

Even as I grudgingly accept the existence of an item number because it is “for the plot”, I acknowledge that the lyrics of that one are pretty creative. But then you have a commentary on consent with “khareedi nahi ja sakti haseen ki ijaazat”* alongside some generic line to the effect “how can anyone be so beautiful?” repeated ad nauseam.

The disappointing bit is that this is such an exciting prospect!

The latter is a post-climax song leading up to the next episode in the series. Actually no, it is a post-post climax song. And there is one more post-post-post climax scene. I know, right? You’d think there is a better way to segue into what’s coming up next than abruptly sewing together all the post and post-post stuff.

Anyway, let’s hope the next one goes back to Stree’s writers. What a fun surprise of a movie that was. I surely don’t remember that one having so many irrelevant scenes that are so long drawn out and slapstick to top it off. Maybe the very obvious social issues will be highlighted appropriately again too. Maybe it’s time to go watch that one again to wash this one out of memory.

~ ~ ~

*A woman’s consent cannot be bought

– meeta, a part of the audience