Uppu Kappurambu Review: A Resounding Political Satire Wrapped in Loss, Laughter and Small-Town Chaos
Graveyards, Gossip, and Governance
Welcome to Chitti Jayapuram, a village where even the graveyard has a waiting list. Chinna (Suhas), a quiet gravedigger dealing with cancer and chaos, brings up a small but serious issue: there are only four burial spots left. You’d think people would panic quietly, but no. Suddenly, the whole village want to book their spot before they expire. Meanwhile, Apoorva (Keerthy Suresh), the new panchayat leader with no clue how to lead, is stuck solving everyone’s “dying” wishes. It’s a comedy of errors, but with just enough soul to keep it grounded.
Performances: Loud, Quiet, and in Between
Keerthy Suresh, on the other hand, walks in like a character from a cartoon. There’s a surprising charm to her awkwardness. Suhas does what Suhas always does, keeping it natural and understated. Babu Mohan and Shatru play their parts like seasoned village drama pros: full of flair and plenty of sarcasm. Talluri Rameshwari’s role is brief but holds emotional weight without melodrama.
Direction & Writing: A Spoonful of Salt with Your Serious Stuff
Ani I.V. Sasi brings a story that’s part rural satire, part emotional drama, and part “what is even happening?” Luckily, Vasanth Maringanti’s writing balances the absurd with the real. There are moments where the humour lands cleanly and others where it slightly overreaches, but the heart of the story never disappears. The film doesn’t yell its message; it just lets it roll out between weird situations and well-timed silences.
Tech Talk: Neat and No-Nonsense
The cinematography by Divakar Mani captures the dry wit of the setting, simple and unfussy. Sweekar Agasthi’s music doesn’t try too hard and still manages to lift the scenes. Editing is mostly on point, though the first act could’ve lost a few extra minutes (and a few over-the-top expressions).
A cartoon world with purposeful madness
Uppu Kappurambu doesn’t try to hide its eccentricity; it wears it proudly, like a ribbon tied around a cracked pot. From the first scene, the film leans into its cartoon-like style with wild gestures, amplified emotions, and characters who feel more like caricatures than people, at least at first glance. But make no mistake, this isn’t accidental chaos. The madness is by design. It is a resounding political satire.
Director Ani I.V. Sasi and writer Vasanth Maringanti intentionally frame the film in an over-the-top, exaggerated world because that’s the point. The cartoonish energy becomes a vehicle to explore themes that, in any other format, might feel too heavy: mortality, class barriers, control over one’s own end, and even the bureaucracy of death.
Some sequences are flat-out bizarre, a village holding strategy meetings about grave plots, for instance, but they serve a purpose. Through the noise and nonsense, the film taps into a quiet but present thread of philosophy: that people often behave most absurdly when dealing with the one thing they can’t control — death.
This mix of slapstick tone with grounded emotion won’t work for everyone. The shifts in mood can feel jarring, and the first half stretches the comic beats a bit too far. But if you’re tuned into the film’s rhythm, somewhere between folklore and farce, you’ll find a strange coherence in the chaos.
Uppu Kappurambu is not just weird for the sake of it. Its strange flavour is the storytelling, a deliberate, theatrical approach that turns the mundane into the mythical and the ridiculous into something surprisingly resonant.
Uppu Kappurambu Review
Rating- 2.5 / 5
