S. R. Praveen

When the makers of Orijinal named the film so, with the play of alphabets signifying protagonist Rijin’s name, they were probably acutely aware of the lack of originality of the time travel concept on which the film is built. This awareness is also acknowledged in hat tips to classic films of the genre such as Back to the Future in the dialogues as well as through a character wearing a yellow jacket inspired from the popular German series Dark. Director Ramees attempts to make up for this lack of novelty by using the whole film to raise pertinent questions on originality, especially in cinema. The time travel trope becomes an excuse for the portrayal of a man introspecting his life choices and then using the accidental gift of time travel to make amends, not always in the right way. It mostly plays around the inherent wish in many humans to correct their past.

Quite a few unusual writing choices can be seen in Prince Joy’s Titans, especially with how it treats its protagonist Antony Yakuza (Jayasurya), a small-time outlaw. Although the hangover of Jayasurya’s Shaji Pappan character from Aadu is very much visible in Antony, he is perhaps one of the most unheroic lead characters in a movie of this kind. In every situation, he is expected to either fail or do the wrong thing and he keeps up with that expectation much of the time. The other interesting approach is in how writer James Sebastian portrays the done-to-death fight between good and evil, going behind the mechanics of how both sides operate, with Lucifer getting a glitzy corporate office and the other side in a location that is a stark contrast. Much of this might have looked great at a conceptual level, but it does not translate that well onto the screen.

Aspirations to be a new-age family entertainer are evident in Avaraachan and Sons, especially in the soundtrack, which contains liberal doses of not-so-great rap lyrics. But at its heart and in its somewhat dated approach, the Thamby-directed film remains an old-fashioned feel-good film, which serves up exciting bits only once in a while. Much of the film banks on Biju Menon’s lazy charm, which easily fits the protagonist Avaraachan, who doesn’t take life seriously, even as he expects a grandchild. A widower with two grown-up sons (Sreenath Bhasi and Ganapathy), he is unable to wean himself off the liquor bottle. Added to this is his propensity to get into trouble quite often. After one such episode, the family decides to pack him off from their coastal abode to the high ranges, where his sister resides.

Any out of the world concept can lose its sheen when it becomes too commonplace and is overused. So it is with the time loop concept in cinema, the latest iteration of which is in Sudhi Maddison’s Dhoomakethu (comet). There is some irony in naming a film with a now commonplace concept with something as rare as a comet. Yet for a part of its runtime, the blend of this now familiar trope with humour seemed to work, until some of the hard work unravels due to weak writing of the background story.

It may be one of cinema’s greatest tricks that it can twist one’s line of thinking about a person or an incident just with the perspective it chooses to present, the framing, editing choices, or the background score used. Reading a basic news report on the incident of crime at the centre of Shahad’s Pradhama Drishtiya Kuttakkar might make one assume a particular stand on the culprits, knowing the long history of this kind of crime in the country and the stories that can be made up to save them. However, the film frames the incident, the events leading up to it, its aftermath and the people involved in such a way that not once do we wish for the culprits to be caught and punished. Of course, we have Jeethu Joseph’s Drishyam (2013), in which we all collectively stood with those who committed the crime. The film also has quite a few parallels with Drishyam, but this one has very different concerns and approach to the crime.

At times, one or two sequences are all it takes to turn an otherwise unremarkable movie into a worthwhile experience. A memorable shot or a standout performance can almost make one forget the rest of its failings. The scene involving Urvashi’s titular character and a doctor in Safar Sanal’s Aasha could have become a run-of-the-mill emotional sequence of a mother realising that something dreadful might have happened to her daughter. But Urvashi lends an uncommon depth to the scene, with a performance that is not just a portrayal of a mother’s anguish over the immediate event, but also her own already frayed mental state. The way she lets stuttered words escape her lips, the voice modulation she employs, or even the way she fails to steadily hold a pen to sign a document, all come together to paint a picture of the ocean of worry within her.

Of all the things Justin (Nivin Pauly) and Ashley (Mamitha Baiju), the protagonists of Bethlehem Kudumba Unit, bond over, music is perhaps what triggers the initial spark. He dusts off an old cassette player, and she brings in her box of cherished old audio cassettes, which she refused to leave behind when her strict mother asked her to while shifting houses. She is surprised that he has heard of the alternative rock band ‘Breeders’, her favourite. It changes her serious, old-man image of him. When Ashley lands in this neighbourhood with her family, reluctant to leave her small home in the village, she is a little circumspect and even melancholic, as one of the characters puts it. Soon, she gels in, as if she has found her tribe. Girish AD does something similar with the audience. He places us firmly amid this bunch of closely-knit characters, all with relatable qualities, quirks and failings, making us feel as if we are among a group of our own friends. It also feels as if everyone here, except Ashley and her family have known each other all their lives, for such is the easy camaraderie and the sharpness of the repartees.

When a star plays a notorious smuggler, there has to be a compelling reason for him to become one. Vysakh’s Khalifa provides Aamir Ali (Prithviraj Sukumaran) a reason with some emotional pull. A one-liner for the film could be this: ‘a heart-rending story of a man who becomes a master gold smuggler to repay his honest father’s debts caused by corrupt politicians’. However, the narrative lacks the intended emotional pull or the expected thrills. The similarity to umpteen films released in the 1980s and 90s adds to the movie’s dullness.