Cliched tale of dreams and desperation in tinsel town

Tiku Weds Sheru

Hindi (Amazon Prime)

Director: Sai Kabir

Cast: Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Avneet Kaur

Rating: 1.5/5

Sheru does everything with shiddat (passion). And he makes it known to everyone within earshot. The audience includes his Persian cat Elizabeth, who lends him a furry ear.

Underneath the gaudy clothes, Sheru is a dreamer who breaks into poetic gibberish about films and filmmaking. But then, there is no dearth of dreamers in Mumbai.

Nawazuddin Siddiqui plays a junior artiste who doubles up as a pimp to earn his daily bread in big, bad Bollywood. His Sheru is the quintessential “outsider” desperate to squeeze his way in.

That’s about it. Kangana Ranaut’s maiden production is a been-there-done-that threading its way through torrid tales of tinsel town. Sheru is the kind you see, or you don’t, in the blurry background of songs. He itches to parade his acting chops but never goes beyond holding an umbrella or cradling a baby behind the hero.

Enter Tiku (Avneet Kaur), a small-town girl waiting for her big ticket to films. A marriage of convenience with Sheru, and voila, she is in Mumbai chasing her “superstar” fantasies. Of course, she doesn’t mind the money. Because she “can’t stand poverty”.

‘Tiku Weds Sheru’ is populated with stereotypes. Sleazeball producers and scheming politicians barge in at regular intervals to spoil Sheru’s party. You see, struggling actors are shoved around in Bollywood underbelly.

A few drug deals and a jail stint later, Sheru emerges wiser to tell us the moral of the story — the film industry is not for small fries. Later, when Tiku is forced to dance for leering men, Sheru turns up in drag to rescue her.

He fails to rescue the film, though.