Tiku Weds Sheru movie review: Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Avneet Kaur are endearing in a film about dreams, and disasters

Cast: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Avneet Kaur, Vipin Sharma

Director: Sai Kabir

Language: Hindi

Just like Jaan-E-Mann, the title Tiku Weds Sheru appears in extra bold font with bulbs and lights flashing on the letters, suggesting it could be a flashy, vibrant love story with all the idiosyncrasies about what Hindi cinema is all about. Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s character gets a nice, nostalgic introduction of how heroes were introduced back in the 70s. He’s a junior artist who likes to improvise even if the aftermath is a raging insult. Siddiqui carries flamboyance well, and it shows in the way he does; it could also stem from the tiredness of playing characters driven by guns and gore. And then we have the debut-making Avneet Kaur, another aspiring, starry-eyed, hot-headed actor who speaks incorrect English. This device still being used for comic relief doesn’t work anymore, and looks puerile and pretentious. Kaur echoes the sentiments of Antra Mali from Main Madhuri Dixit Banna Chahti Hoon with a far more dialed-up performance.

Still, there’s a certain charm in the way Siddiqui and Kaur’s scenes are staged, especially their awkward, amusing suhaagraat that quickly brought the doomed Bobby Deol and the devilish Ameesha Patel’s Humraaz in mind. The film has the hero and the heroine’s thoughts and dreams pour out like dialogues about ambition and dreams. At one point, the hero says Mumbai is a city of dreams but all he has seen is them getting suffocated. But the tone of the story is kept light-hearted; just like Kangana Ranaut’s own Tanu Weds Manu, her first production also walks the path of some sort of similar treatment for the time being. But Sai Kabir takes the narrative through a lot of dark alleys that feel sudden and abrupt. The intent here might have been to expose the underbelly of the world of films and how shady it can be (in Sheru’s own words) but throwing in drugs, sex, scandals, scams, an unnecessary cameo nearly threatens to make this a bland potpourri.

What keeps Tiku Weds Sheru afloat are Tiku and Sheru. Right when Tiku is introduced, her age gap with Sheru is quickly addressed that a majority of the movies shy away from. Sheru’s playfulness and Tiku’s stubbornness gel well and so do their humorous altercations. Siddiqui knows how to walk the tightrope of tragedy and comedy and he does well here too. And so does Kaur, her naïveté and rage surprisingly make Tiku more cute than cacophonous. But the film should have been just as flashy and vibrant as the title appeared. Periods.

Rating: 3 (out of 5 stars)

Tiku Weds Sheru is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video India

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