Uppena Movie Review

Uppena is the debut of mega hero Vaishnav Tej, Krithi Shetty, and director Buchi Babu Sana. The team has been promoting the movie aggressively for the past few days and this love drama is releasing amid good buzz. The movie hit the screens today, Feb 12th. Let's know the review of the film.

Star Cast- Panja Vaishnav Tej, Vijay Sethupathi, Krithi Shetty

Director- Buchi Babu Sana

Producer- Mythri Movie Makers

Music- Devi Sri Prasad

Story: The story opens on a dark note as the male lead, Asirwadam (Vaishnav Tej) lies wounded and speechless on the beach shore. In the flashback, Asi was a fisherman in Uppada who belongs to a lower caste and is in love with Bebamma (Krithi Shetty) right from his childhood but the latter notices him during her college days and she too liked him and the couple often meet secretly and slowly develop a strong relationship. One day, Bebamma’s father Rayanam(Vijay Sethupathi) comes to know about the relationship. As her father is a menacing and caste-centric man and intends to cut off his daughter’s relationship with Asi. The rest of the story shows what Rayanam does to Asi in order to cut his relationship with Bebamma.

Performances: The main driving force of the movie is the lead pair, Vaishnav Tej and Krithi Shetty. Vaishnav Tej does very good in love scenes and he really has attractive eyes and gets his diction and body language perfect for this relatively challenging role.

Krithi Shetty is one of the actress who looks very pretty and can act equally well. The way she performed in romantic scenes and the right demeanor in emotional scenes is very impressive. Vijay Sethupathi looks menacing and carries an ominous look all through the movie. His screen presence and attitude are top-notch.

The rest of the cast including Sai Chand and Rajeev Kanakala gave their best performance.

Technical Crew: Devi Sri Prasad deserves a special mention for the film as his songs built good pre-release fizz and anticipation to the movie and now, his bgm breathed life into the story. Shyam Dutt’s visuals are of top notch for the film. His cinematography adds another layer to the story and his visual presentation is one of the main assets of the movie. Editing done by Naveen Nooli does a fairly decent job with the opening half of the film. Action scenes are done decent.

Director, Buchi Babu Sana picked a plotline which is based on casteism and Telugu audiences have watched quite a few movies with this set-up in the past. However, he manages to add a new layer to the movie by selecting a beach backdrop. The climax portion does not create the desired impact and the execution is not quite right.

The first half of the film is enjoyable with good performances from the lead pair, but the second half is anything but impressive. The narrative is slow, the climax is weak and the ending is not convincing.

Positive Aspects

Lead pair performance

Vijay Sethupathi

First half

Visual presentation

Devi Sri Prasad’s songs and background score

Negative aspects

Poor narration

Climax is underwhelming

Screenplay

Lack of emotional connect

Overall Verdict: Only for those who love realistic love dramas, can watch once.