When a woman(Navya Nair) shows up at an orphanage in a daze and not uttering a single word, she is assigned to Jo(Vincent Asokan) for treatment. The woman, christened Anjali by Jo, is haunted by nightmares that show a man killing her. A psychiatrist Gopalakrishnan(Raghuvaran), after seeing Jo's advertisement in the newspaper, wishes to help Anjali and hypnotizes her in order to get to the root of her nightmares. He unearths the fact that she is the reincarnation of Senbagam(Navya Nair), who lived in the 60s and was murdered by her husband Chidambaram(Vincent Asokan), who suspected her of having an affair with his friend Madhavan(Vineeth), a singer. Chidambaram is the man Anjali is seeing in her dreams and when she comes to, she realizes that Jo resembles Chidambaram.

Sila Nerangalil is a rip-off of Kenneth Branagh's Dead Again. A few changes - the housekeeper there becomes Vincent Asokan's sister here, the professions of the key characters are different, etc. - but the gist of the story, including small details like the murder weapon and the loss of some jewellery, are intact. So it is surprising, and unfortunate, that the best part of that movie has been left out. A key plot point in Dead Again, that is guaranteed to take the viewer by surprise, is such a marvelous twist that it amazes us and invigorates the movie. The twist is left out of the remake, making it a rather predictable, straightforward telling of the story and stripping it off what would've been a real good shocker.

Without unnecessary distractions like a comedy track or multiple fights, the movie is pretty streamlined and so maintains a good pace. There are many questions but it helps that things keep moving in both time periods. While the hypnotization sessions(wish these had been staged a little more convincingly) in the present reveal a little bit at a time to help maintain the suspense, we see only a few important sequences and a few key characters in the life of the couple in the 60s and so things feel crisp. The downside of this is that, with so few characters, we can easily guess the identity of the murderer.

Sila Nerangalil does retain the other twist from Dead Again and this one does hold up quite well. The film could have done without an unnecessary clue early in the proceedings that helps us foresee the twist but it still works as a good surprise.

Vincent Asokan gets a promotion as hero(the fact that he produced the movie probably had something to do with that!) but has no trouble essaying the role. He does seem more at home portraying the jealous husband than the orphanage healer but that could be because we have seen him as a villain so far. The opposite is true of Navya Nair. She is believable as the woman trying to understand her nightmares but tends to overact a bit as Senbagam, especially when fawning over Vineeth. Its difficult to avoid a twinge of sadness on seeing Raghuvaran. The role is too cliched to be counted among his best but he reveals two facets of his character and is convincing in both.