All right, the good news first. Nagesh Kukunoor's Hyderabad Blues sequel is just the appetising biriyani we all were hoping it would be.(Also read: `HB 2` is about me growing up: Nagesh Kukunoor)

After the grossly underrated 3 Deewaarein last year, Kukunoor needed to return to his roots. The film is quite engaging and is a satire on the middleclass.

Varun Naidu hasn't changed since we last met him six years ago. Still a bit flustered by the Great Indian Chaos, the most radical change in his life since we last met him is the dissolution of his green-card status.

If the original (and boy, how original!) film celebrated the otherness of the foreign-returned dude with an attitude, Hyderabad Blues 2 (HB2) celebrates his one-ness with the spirit of the chaos in Hyderabad. The backroom jokes and the all-boys' babble over a game of cards are among the highlights of HB2 (arguably the smartest, sassiest sequel this country's cinema has produced). (Also read: Preview: Kukunoor`s arty sequel vs potboiler)

I don't think any film has so effectively been able to capture the spirit of the banal, lascivious but absurd camaraderie among male friends as they discuss - what else? - women snd sex, in that order.

Back home there's Varun's strangely disaffected-looking wife Ashwini (Jyoti Dogra) pining for a child. The sequel far more 'sexy' than the earlier film, as Ashwini plots with her best friend to get Varun more 'interested in her.

Sexy of course is a 'relative' term in Hyderbad Blues. The manner in which Kukunoor portrays the whole familial scenario makes him a disarmingly subvertive Sooraj Barjatya.

"I don't know which of you I should kill first," Varun rolls his eyes at his parents after they mess up his one chance to get back with his sulking wife. Oh, didn't I tell? The baby plans in Varun's and Ashwini's cosy life dissolves into a divorce-like situation after Varun nearly commits adultery.

The voluptuous new floor manager Menaka (Tisca Arora) in Varun's office, who happily admits she's 'made a career' out of seducing her bosses gives Varun a peer into her cleavage. A disgruntled employee (caught earlier for sexual harassment) squeals to Varun's wife about Varun's escapades.

The rest of the story follows a comic and tricky path, with Ashwini sending her repentant husband back to the States. It's all a bit of a been-there-done-it-all marital drama but played out at an unusual octave.

We almost expect a last-minute airport reunion between the couple. But aha! Kukunoor is smarter than we think. He delays the inevitable. The reunion comes at an NRI cousin's traditional wedding where, amidst the sounds of marital vows, Ashwini sobs her way to Varun's heart.

On the surface HB2 follows all the rules of the traditional romantic comedy. It has the chirpy boldness of a Woody Allen fable and the musical aspirations of a traditional Hindi romantic musical (the sporadic songs on the soundtrack are sensibly introduced into the narration).

But beyond the savvy dialogues and the raunchy-and-comic rituals of romanticism Kukunoor creates a world of lived-in characters. They seem to have been on screen long before G.S Bhaskar's quietly inquisitive camera was switched on.

While Kukunoor is so in-character as Varun that it's impossible to imagine any other actor replacing him, Jyoti Dogra's performance is lacklustre. Playing the realistic versions of the roles that Anil Kapoor and Tabu did in Biwi No.1, Elahi Heptoolah and to a lesser degree, Vikram Inaamdar as the protagonist's friends are delightful. Heptoolah as the busybody running a home and a marriage bureau is so natural, we wonder if she knows what many Kukunoor's characters don't: that life can be taken seriously only at the individual's own risk.

Curiously, Kukunoor introduces homosexuality into the picture a little late in the day. Ashwini's doctor-colleague - in a sequence that's somewhat contrived and badly acted - confesses his sexual preference. "I'm not ashamed of being gay. But it's the loneliness that bothers me," says the doc.

The character's confession stands out in a film and a scenario where no one is ever alone, or given the chance to be lonely. Swarming with characters and teeming with remarks that replicate the rhythms of the educated middleclass in the metro, HB2 is the most likeable film in ages.

The hybridised Hindi-Telugu-English dialogues which were undoubtedly the USP of Hyderabad Blues, continue to lure viewers in this charming tale of heartbreak and laughter in the city of the Charminar.