2.5/5
Shiraz Khan Afghani ‘Sheru’ (Nawazuddin Siddiqui), is a junior artiste, who belonged to an erstwhile royal family but is currently a pauper. He lives in a Mumbai chawl but thinks he’s living in a palace. He has an immaculately clean cat named Elizabeth as a companion. Mind you, it always looks like the cat is randomly thrown into the scene and has zero interest in the proceedings. Tasleem ‘Tiku’ Khan (Avneet Kaur) a Bhopal girl who dreams of becoming a superstar. She agrees to marry Sheru, who looks twice her age, as her ticket to Mumbai. She belongs to a super conservative family and longs to flee their bondage. She’s pregnant with her lover’s child but Sheru magnanimously agrees to be the child’s father. He lies about being a junior artiste and pretends to be a film financier. He’s actually a pimp who supplies girls to shady politicians and the underworld types. In order to earn easy money, he takes to the drug trade but gets caught in the vicious web spun by a gay politician Chandresh Bhund (Suresh Vishwakarma), his rival Ahmed Rizvi (Zakir Hussain) and mafia don Shahid Ansari (Vipin Sharma). He’s jailed in a drug heist and as a result, things get from bad to worse for Tiku. She’s forced into prostitution. It seems that there’s no end to their misery, till Sheru comes in like a Bollywood hero to rescue her…
Director Sai Kabir, who’s also one of the writers of the film, starts the film like a comedy. We feel as if we’re watching another spoof on the inner life of the film industry. And for some ten-fifteen minutes or so of the first half, it’s indeed a comedy. You smile when you see Nawazuddin Siddiqui acting as a junior artiste, his head full of dreams of playing the lead one day. We all know that Nawaz did start out doing small roles in films and we’re deluded into thinking that the film is all about his rise to fame and glory. Alas, it isn’t so.
The film then sinks into the murky depths of the film industry. We’re told that Nawaz, who besides being a junior artiste, is also a pimp. It’s a dog eat dog world where there are no friends or enemies, only opportunities. Sheru’s partner (Mukesh S Bhatt) cuts off all ties when he gets jailed. Another acquaintance (Ghanshyam Garg) fools Tiku into ‘compromising’ with a producer, promising to launch her as a heroine, then ditches her unceremoniously. Both Sheru and Tiku are supposed to stoically suffer as such is the fate of those living in the lowest strata of the industry and nothing can be done about it. It’s a bleak, bleak story, which we fear would end in either murder or suicide but the director changes track again and gives it a Bollywood ending. The climax shows Sheru coming to Tiku’s rescue in drag, as bullets fly and the bad guys mysteriously end up killing each other. It’s the kind of escapist fantasy which every struggler dreams about and Sai Kabir has fulfilled that wish.
The topsy-turvy nature of the story does the film injustice. The director couldn’t seem to decide which way he wants to veer and abandons any hopes of making a comedy after the first half an hour. The patchy screenplay is salvaged by the sincerity and enthusiasm shown by the leads. Nawazuddin Siddiqui again proves why he’s known as one of the most dependable actors of the industry. He brings a vitality to his role and makes it believable. You root for Sheru and want him to turn over a new leaf. It’s another straight-from-the-heart performance by the actor. Newcomer Avneet Kaur too has essayed Tiku with the intensity the character deserves. She goes from a clueless small-town girl to a woman whose innocence gets shattered through the course of a film and has done justice to all the facets.
Watch the film for the performances and also if you wish to see the grime beneath the glamour of Bollywood.
Trailer : Tiku Weds Sheru
Dhaval Roy, June 23, 2023, 5:14 PM IST
2.5/5
Tiku Weds Sheru story: This is the story of two wannabe actors with silver-screen dreams in a marriage of convenience. As they are forced to “compromise” to survive in Bollywood, they find love in each other. Will they make it big with each other’s support?
Tiku Weds Sheru review: You know what to expect from a movie based on Bollywood, especially on the life of junior or background artistes trying to make it big in the ruthless world. Tiku Weds Sheru gives you a glimpse of all that through Shiraz Afghani aka Sheru (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) who thinks he’s the cat’s whiskers and hams every time he’s in front of the camera. As he tries to make it big, he works as a pimp to survive, though earnest to leave that life behind.
On the other hand, there’s Tiku (Avneet Kaur), a fierce and spoilt girl from Bhopal with a flair for writing poetry who wants to escape her misogynistic family and become a superstar. Her big ticket to Bollywood comes in the form of Sheru, who pretends to be a film financier. The duo gets married because Sheru gets a dowry that he can use to pay off a loan shark. The story is about how they navigate through life in tinseltown, and become a family. But their lives turn upside down when Sheru is arrested as he takes to drug peddling, Tiku tries to make it big in the industry and is embroiled in the same ugly world.
The film’s narrative and Sai Kabir’s direction suffer from a lack of cohesion and flow. It’s the love story of two ‘strugglers’ in part and about what junior artistes face in the name of getting the big break. Often, the screenplay does not do justice to either theme. Tiku gets pregnant with someone else’s child, whom Sheru accepts quite readily seems a bit unconvincing.
Nawazuddin as a loud junior artiste hits it out of the park with his performance. He drops filmi dialogues such as “Hum jab bhi milte hain dil se milte hain, warna khwab mein bhi mushkil se milte hain,” as effortlessly as he emotes. Avneet Kaur shows tremendous promise both as a fiery and self-assured young woman and a desperate girl who’s broken when she discovers her husband’s reality. She shines in the scene when she breaks down and grabs food from a film set after she realises she was sold off with the promise of a role that she does not bag.
The film has a sluggish start and doesn’t have much new to offer until the end. What’s more, you feel no empathy for the characters. The movie is watchable for Nawazuddin’s performance, though his dressing up as a woman in a dance number could have been skipped.
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