Orijinal Movie Review:

What if you could go back in time and tell your younger self everything you know now? Would you make different choices? Would you take a different route to success? It's a fantasy we've all had at some point. Ramees’s debut Orijinal takes that familiar thought and places it in the film industry, where the temptation to steal someone else’s story can outweigh the desire to make your own.

Director: Ramees

Cast: Sreenath Bhasi, Abhiram Radhakrishnan, Binu Pappu, Femina George

The story follows Rijin Yusuf (Sreenath Bhasi), an aspiring filmmaker who has spent his life trying to get his career off the ground with no success. His life changes when he meets an older version of himself from the future, who returns via a time-travelling watch. The older Rijin warns him about the miserable life that awaits him. The two of them decide to use their knowledge of the future to improve their lives, using scripts of future hits as their tool.

The concept isn't exactly new. Films like Looper explore the complications of the same person meeting across different points in time, and the idea of going back and changing your own future is a fairly common trope in the genre. What Orijinal does is take that and bring it into the setting of filmmaking in a very specific way. The stakes aren't about saving the world or preventing some apocalyptic event. They're about making a career, achieving success, reputation, luxury, and, above all else, deciding just how far you're prepared to go to get there.

The first hour is the most entertaining stretch of the film. The moments when the two versions of Rijin try to figure out how to use their knowledge of the future are quite fun. For instance, when the younger Rijin tries to pitch the story of Drishyam to Mohanlal in 2012, he runs into a problem when he discovers that Jeethu Joseph has already been working on the film. This forces the duo to rethink their strategy and look for stories that haven't been conceived yet. They eventually set their sights on Anand Gopi (Abhiram Radhakrishnan), a filmmaker who hasn't even thought about entering cinema in 2012, the future director of blockbusters.

One of Orijinal's strengths is that it doesn't spend much time getting into the nitty-gritty of its time travel. You get just enough information to grasp how the watch works and what its limitations are, and then the story gets on with itself. Faizal Fatli's cinematography and Shafique Mohamed Ali's editing work in harmony, keeping the different timelines from becoming too confusing, while Electronic Kili's music and background score are also easy on the ears.

The film gets more interesting when the central premise takes on a moral dimension. After all, what if the very thing you do to improve your own life comes at the expense of someone else's? The older Rijin, having finally achieved the success he'd been denied for so long, isn't keen on letting it go. The younger Rijin begins to question the very choices that got them to where they are. Of course, it references the line from Avengers: Endgame, "You mess with time, it tends to mess back", and the repercussions of altering the past gradually become the core of the film's conflict.

However, this is also where Orijinal begins to lose some of the seamlessness it had in the first half. Every time-travel film has its own internal logic, and Ramees has established one for his. When the moral dilemma comes into play, some developments feel a little too convenient. The intent is perfectly understandable, but a few of these bits could have been executed with more conviction. At its core, the film is a fable about originality in a world that so often rewards shortcuts, with Rijin's situation serving as a vehicle to explore the difference between achieving something and actually earning it. The title Orijinal's wordplay is very much in keeping with that theme.

Coming to the performances, Sreenath Bhasi is the film's real asset. Playing two versions of the same man could easily have been a chore, but he gives each Rijin a very different character. The older Rijin is clearly the man who's been through life's failures and is increasingly tormented by the fear of losing the success and comfort he's reluctant to give up. The younger Rijin, though not without his own faults, is still in a state of innocence and is more inclined to question what he's doing. People change over a decade or so, and the actor captures that difference effectively.

Abhiram Radhakrishnan is apt as Anand Gopi, and his presence is crucial to the film's overall argument. Femina George is serviceable as Anand's wife Trisha, but the female characters are largely relegated to the background. Rijin's girlfriend has no real identity beyond being part of Rijin's life, and the Anand/Trisha subplot is essentially a means to an end for the central narrative. Rajesh Madhavan's Mikhayel remains something of an enigma. While keeping his subplot brief prevents the narrative from becoming overly complicated, it also leaves his character's purpose largely unexplored beyond introducing the time-travelling watch.

Despite its flaws, Ramees deserves credit for attempting something relatively uncommon in Malayalam cinema. Orijinal may stumble in developing some of its ideas, but it remains an enjoyable watch and a promising debut. For all its detours, the film eventually circles back to a simple truth. Borrowing someone else's story might offer a shortcut to success, but there is a different kind of fulfilment in having a story of your own to tell.