Ghoomketu is an improvised name which loosely translates as a star that returns home. The star here is an aspiring writer who comes from a UP village to Mumbai chasing his Bollywood dream. Ghoomketu has a Masters degree in Hindi literature and a great ambition to tell stories but he invariably ends up writing scripts with titles like Khooni Bathroom.

Ghoomketu, the film - much like the titular character - doesn't quite know what it wants to be. Rather aims to bite more than it can actually chew. Is it a spoof of the film industry or a celebration of it? Or just uses many a starry cameo - Amitabh Bachchan, Ranveer Singh, Sonakshi Sinha, Nikkhil Advani, Chitrangada Singh - to somehow make itself stay afloat when there is little by way of imagination, inventiveness and exuberance to the script and the telling.

We've our lead named Ghoomketu (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) inspired by 'Dhumketu' (comet) just to indicate that he's a wandering star (whereas, a comet is never considered as a star). At first, I thought, "What a brilliant strategy to name a film," but then I realised that's the only time the film at least pretends to be creative. So, Ghoomketu is from a small town from Lucknow, Mahona, and wants to write stories for Bollywood.

If a movie is inspired by a celestial object that veers out of its orbit ever so often, who are we to complain? Ghoomketu, which is being streamed on Zee5, is named after an aspiring writer from a small town. He has a talent for weaving words into greeting card sentiments and political slogans, so he figures that a literary career cannot be too far away.

Clad in colourful clothes, the film's oddball protagonist breaks the fourth wall by striking unfunny conversations with you throughout. It's a pity that a film which revolves around an aspiring writer has such unimaginative writing. It's testament to the common notion that anyone can write.

An aspiring Bollywood screenwriter from Uttar Pradesh runs away from home and reaches Mumbai, only to find out the real worth of his stories. He has only 30 days to prove his mettle, otherwise he will have to return to his village where his perennially angry father is waiting for him.

A small-town man aspiring to achieve big reaches Mumbai with a big metal trunk and a military holdall. Seems like a plot for a quintessential 70s Bollywood film? Well, it isn't. Directed by Pushpendra Nath Mishra, Ghoomketu, which finally released on Zee5 after a waiting period of 5 years, stars Nawazuddin Siddiqui in the titular role of a 31-year-old aspiring Bollywood writer who flees his village, Mohena in Uttar Pradesh to realise his dream in Mumbai.

Though Nawazuddin Siddiqui has built his reputation largely on grim, sometimes even grisly roles, we know he has the genes for comedy. We know it from Lunchbox in which he was sweet and charming and comical in an otherwise pensive scenario. We know it from other, lesser films too in which we caught flashes of his funny bone. Ghoomketu - now streaming on Zee5 - is his attempt at an all-out comedic performance in an unconventional Bollywood project.

The plot is overly reedy. A 30-something man from Mahona, Uttar Pradesh escapes the drudgery of his life and reaches Mumbai in the hope of becoming a screenwriter. But any possibility of his (mis)adventures yielding a rollercoaster ride is quickly frittered away. Ghoomketu is a vapid fits-and-starts affair that flits between a semi-rural family and the movie industry without striking any sort of rhythm.

Can a film starring Nawazuddin Siddiqui as the main act be a drag? That's the question that stared me in the face, literally, for the duration of Ghoomketu. And the answer is, yes, alack and alas. Not that it's Nawazuddin's fault. For a film which revolves around a wannabe writer of Bollywood movies, he has been given the most banal, overused lines and situations.

"Writing comedy is a serious business," Nawazuddin Siddiqui's whimsically named hero Ghoomketu tells us in the eponymous film. "Audience should laugh too." The trouble with Ghoomketu is it never uses its own sage advice. It spells out the obvious, and then goes and underlines it. After a while, it just feels like you are in the middle of an exposition dump and the walls are closing in.