Watch reviewWriter-Director Sai Kabir’s latest Amazon offering, Tiku Weds Sheru, has a 1960s feel when men and women with stars in their eyes came to Mayanagari or Dream City or what was once Bombay to shine on the sliver screen. Tiku Weds Sheru was to have been made many years ago with Irrfan Khan and Kangana Ranaut, but Kabir fell ill and by the time he got better, Irrfan was gone. And Kangana was not in a mood to play Tiku, so she produced the current version with Avneet Kaur and Nawazuddin Siddiqui.
Tiku Weds Sheru looks quite jaded, and seems to be unsure of where to place itself in with Avneet essaying Tiku, whose ambition is to become a superstar (yawn). And when she gets a chance to get out of Bhopal by marrying Sheru (Nawazuddin), she grabs it with all her fingers.
Sheru is a small-time player in Bombay living off lies. He feeds his new wife with one after another. As a junior artist, he gets pushed around on the movie sets, but the smart guy that he is, he, on one occasion sneaks into the vanity van of a heroine to steal a dress which he presents to Tiku. At other times, he steals cars with such ease that the script begins to look shaky.
Earlier titled Divine Lovers, the latest version obviously suffers from coherent direction, and I kept thinking how Irrfan would have made such a lovely impact. This is not to say Nawazuddin is bad, but the kind of subtle wit the late actor would have brought to Sheru would have been illuminating. Yes, newcomer Avneet is a good find, and first time producer Kangana could not have asked for more. Avneet is a natural, and portrays with ease the dreams and desires of a girl who first gets ditched in love and then finds her ambition to become a star vanishing in the ruthless world of Bollywood.
Indeed, there is too much of black in the script, with movie producers and others being painted as heartless villains. I could not see one good guy there which makes the love story of Tiku and Sheru very unevenly balanced. But the work is peppered with some nice couplets that Sheru recites to woo Tiku, and these turn into some charming moments.
