‘Tiku Weds Sheru’ On Amazon Prime Video Movie Review: Avneet Kaur Shines Brighter Than Nawazuddin Siddiqui In This Hotchpotch Ode To The Underbelly Of Showbiz

‘Tiku Weds Sheru’: Cast & Crew

Director: Sai Kabir

Cast: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Avneet Kaur, Khushi Bhardwaj, Mukesh Bhatt, Vipin Sharma, Zakir Hussain, Suresh Vishwakarma, Ghanshyam Garg

Available On: Amazon Prime Video

Duration: 1 Hour 51 Minutes

‘Tiku Weds Sheru’: Story

‘Tiku Weds Sheru’ is billed as a tale of two eccentric, starry-eyed characters (Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Avneet Kaur), who want to make it big in Bollywood. The film is a kind of love letter to those who come to this city, but lose their way yet end up finding something much more meaningful. Will the two find their way in the film industry? Will the two ever make it big? Will the two be able to ever stand each other and fall in love? Or will the two be eaten up alive by the underbelly of the big city? Well, for all that you’ll have to watch the film.

‘Tiku Weds Sheru’: Performances

Avneet Kaur is the star of the film. While in the initial quarter of the film, you feel that she is barely there, but once she comes on screen, she lights up the entire scene. Her performance is fire. From the word go, she has that adrenaline-pumping feel that makes you want to know her character more and more. Not to forget the way she expresses the naivete of youth makes you feel like she’s performing out of personal experience. Even in the emotional bits, she manages to keep her calm and gets a mature performance. Her performance justifies why the makers decided to name the movie ‘Tiku Weds Sheru’ and not ‘Sheru Weds Tiku’.

Nawazuddin Siddiqui should have been given a character that was much better. He brings his personal touch to the character and makes it very believable. But whenever the character goes into these crazy highs and lows of emotions, and he breaks down and starts crying, those bits look too forced. To say the least, this isn't Nawazuddin's finest performance. Also, he is slightly becoming repetitive in these raw small-town characters and he desperately needs to either get a kickass story based in a small town or he needs to alter his body language altogether.

The rest of the characters don’t have enough meat in their role to elevate the performance. The character of Avneet’s younger sister, played by Khushi Bhardwaj, could have been sketched out more vividly. Then the character of Nawazuddin’s boss, played by Vipin Sharma, could have had more meat into it so as to make the characteristics come out even better. In short, there’s no stand-out act from anyone in the supporting cast.

‘Tiku Weds Sheru’: Script, Direction & Technical Aspects

The writing by Sai Kabir and Amit Tiwari had more loopholes than a sieve. Nawazuddin’s character takes stuff like dresses and even cars from the shooting unit, and uses it for personal use, with no consequence whatsoever. How? Nawazuddin’s character suddenly becomes a drug dealer with no explanation as to how he met the person supplying him with the drugs. To add to that, when the police catch hold of him, there isn’t any mention of the people who got Nawazuddin into this profession in the first place. Then, there is no mention or showing of his court dates. What happened to the younger sister? Did Avneet’s parents never try to do anything for their daughter? What happened to Avneet's daughter? Did she never fight for her own child as Rani Mukerji did in ‘Mrs Chatterjee Vs Norway’? Well, the list can go on and on and on. The writing of the climax needed to stitch together all these loose ends which would have made the story more wholesome. All of this totally makes you forget the brilliance with which they’ve shown the travails of young girls and boys coming to Mumbai from small towns in order to make a name for themselves in the film industry. That part is so well-researched and written that as a viewer you’ll eventually start hating the workings of the film industry.

Sai Kabir, as an experienced director, should have brought together all the loose ends to a proper closure through his vision. Sadly, that didn’t happen. To add to that, in order to tie the dramatic storyline, he resorted to a very commercial potboiler of a climax. It’s so masala laden that you’re left thinking that you’re watching a Priyadarshan movie. The climax was unexpected and it didn’t do the trick, honestly. A much more subtle ending could have made the gravitas of the plotline come out even more seriously and effectively.

The cinematography by Fernando Gayesky is good. It’s pretty much the best part about ‘Tiku Weds Sheru’. He has managed to show a perspective of Mumbai that not many mainstream films try to portray. The inner workings of the film industry have been depicted very realistically onscreen.

Ballu Saluja’s editing is decent. He has managed to keep the film crisp and short, which is good. The film had already started feeling like a drag act (pun intended) by the time the climax came in, so it was good that Saluja wrapped it up pretty quickly. Otherwise, it would have been an even messier film.

Gaurav Chatterji and Sai Kabir’s music is another highlight of the film. Songs like ‘Intezaar Tha’ and ‘Tum Se Milke’ stay with you long after the movie’s over. Probably they could even find a place in your playlists.

‘Tiku Weds Sheru’: Can Kids Watch It?

Yes

Outlook’s Verdict

‘Tiku Weds Sheru’ tries to be too many things, and fails at quite a few of them. It tries to tell a story of the troubles girls and boys face in Mumbai when they come to join the film industry from small towns in India. It also talks about the ills of the film industry, and how youngsters are exploited. It shows these aspects pretty well. It also tries to show how the city of Mumbai is always ready to accept everyone coming up but doesn’t spare anyone from the horrors it holds in its underbelly. However, where the film falls flat the most is when it comes to the climax which absolutely massacres the intentions with the most commercial masala potboiler of an ending. Nawazuddin Siddiqui deserved a better character, even though Avneet Kaur was absolutely stunning. Overall, this is a decent Average Watch. I am going with 2.5 stars.