Balan - The Boy

Chidambaram crafts a haunting, emotionally rich coming-of-age tale that lingers despite its occasional flaws. The film creates an atmosphere of quiet unease where every conversation feels loaded with history and every recollection carries the possibility of revelation, though ambiguity sometimes limits emotional involvement when it becomes an end in itself rather than a storytelling choice.

The defining image in Malayalam film director Chidambaram's Balan The Boy comes in the first half, when mother and son find a moment of respite after a lot of running around. It is a declaration. No one is welcome here in their chosen space, and if some outside force tries to break this peace, there will be consequences.

Given that this movie is a slow burner and unconventional, the audience's expectations of it being a commercial entertainer may lead to some disappointment.

A riveting mother-son drama with a superb first half, Balan: The Boy loses some of its grip after an ambitious but uneven turn. If the first half is a masterclass in slow-burn storytelling, then the second half takes quite a bold turn that struggles to match the excellence established earlier.

While the film has its share of taut moments, the emotions remain surprisingly muted.

The sheer delulu around a dapperly-dressed, foreign ministry bureaucrat, carefully selecting snazzy #ootd—strutting around in her fancy apartment and office, like some US Vice President type from Veep, as TV channels go high-decibel berserk, breaking news of her getting anointed India's youngest deputy high commissioner to Britain—should warn you enough about all that's to follow in this pretentious nonsense.