'Vyasana Sametham Bandhu Mithradhikal' Movie Review: A Hilarious Tragicomedy With Pitch-Perfect Casting

When Vipin Das, the producer of Vyasana Sametham Bandhu Mithradhikal (With Condolences, Friends and Relatives), last directed a film, he made Guruvayoor Ambalanadayil (2024), a hilarious confusion-comedy that culminated in a million things going wrong at a wedding. The hit comedy was something a master like Priyadarshan would have been proud to call his own. But if he were to watch Vyasana Sametham Bandhu Mithradhikal, he’d be prouder. Made by another Vipin (S Vipin), he borrows the chaos of a Priyadarshan-esque comedy and plants it within a dark comedic setting that is already primed for the wildest of laughs. 

So, instead of a wedding like in his guru’s film, Vipin sets up his comedy on the day on which the film’s protagonist Anjali’s (Anaswara Rajan) grandmother passes away. What makes the timing impeccably imperfect is that she’s just a week away from getting engaged to her toxic fiancé. On one hand, you feel deeply for Anjali for having lost the one person in the family she connected strongly to; in the other hand, her grandmother’s passing is a blessing in disguise, giving her hope that she can get out of a marriage she was never interested in. 

Instead of spending a lot of time setting this up, he focuses just as much on creating a set of the most random characters who fit in elegantly into the film’s amusingly eccentric universe. It’s a tiny miracle, especially the way he’s able to make you care for as many as 10 sub-plots at any given moment. This could be something as far removed from the central plot, like the nosy neighbours who will not allow for the grandmother’s body to be cremated on their land, or Anjali's tech-challenged in-laws who keep chasing the wrong live location on WhatsApp. 

Each of these sub-plots has been written around one broad joke, but the casting is so perfect that we’re constantly looking forward to the reactions of these actors, even if we predict where the gags are going. Some of these are outrageously funny, like Sakthi (Joemon Jyothir), who finds himself flirting unrestrainedly with a woman thrice his age. The setting is funny, but what's funnier is how far the two actors commit to make sure we are rolling on the floor. 

Apart from the writing and casting. even Vipin’s directorial decisions work overtime to make sure the tension keeps mounting, giving us the sense that each joke is earned. Take the idea of the neighbourhood boys who want to continue practising for their brass band recital the same evening. They have nowhere else to go, and they need to keep playing their loud music even while a death has just taken place next door. But instead of using this idea as some low-hanging fruit, he too commits fully to writing in musical themes and tunes that are constantly at war with the tragedy next door. The mood is gloomy, but the music is jubilant. And in most cases, it’s seamless how Ankit Menon’s music switches between diegetic and non-diegetic without attracting any attention towards itself. 

The result is a hilarious tragicomedy that works so consistently that its anti-patriarchal messaging hits you with subtlety, without it having to try too hard. You’re willing to forgive the film for the way it forgets to complete multiple loose ends, without giving you the closure you were expecting even for the more important characters. But in this exchange, we get glimpses of a Wodehousian novel we start reading from somewhere in the middle, and one you choose to leave for later because your stomach hurts from laughing too much.