- Home
- / Television
- / OTT
'Balan The Boy' Review, Mother-Son Depth And Sharp Technicals Shine, Pacing And Generic Moments Drag
'Balan The Boy' has finally arrived on ZEE5 on July 31, 2026. The movie is directed by Chidambaram, who is well-known for 'Manjummel Boys.'
See more of our coverage in your search results.
Add BollywoodShaadis on GoogleBalan: The Boy, which arrived on ZEE5 on July 31, 2026, puts a mother and son on the run and asks what we carry when home isn’t an option anymore. Directed by Chidambaram and co-written with Jithu Madhavan, the film uses tight spaces, quiet performances, and a low-key score to build tension around identity and belonging.
Balan: The Boy works best in its intimate moments, but loses steam when it leans on familiar thriller beats. Led by strong central turns, it’s a survival drama that’s more about people than plot twists.
What works: Performances, mood, and emotional weight
Balan: The Boy works best when it stays with its two leads and stops worrying about plot mechanics. Chidambaram builds the film around a mother and son on the run, and he gives them room to just exist in uncomfortable spaces. That’s where the film gets its power.
Adhisheshan K. R., who plays the young 'Balan,' doesn’t try to do too much. He communicates through small things: the way he watches adults, how he goes quiet when he’s scared, and the brief defiance when he’s pushed too far. It never feels like a performance asking for awards. It feels like a kid trying to survive.
Opposite the child, the mother, portrayed by Farzana Palathingal, is written with real contradictions. She is shown as protective but not perfect. She also appears strong, but she is clearly breaking. The actress plays her role without melodrama. In scenes where she lies to a stranger, then falls apart the second her son isn’t looking, you believe both versions of her. Their scenes together don’t rely on big speeches about love. It’s in checking if he’s eaten, in covering him with a blanket in a cheap room, in the panic when they get separated for even a minute.
Chidambaram’s direction leans into tension in everyday locations. Shyju Khalid shoots bus stands, highways, and rented houses with natural light and tight frames that make you feel boxed in. There’s no glamour here, and that helps. Sushin Shyam’s score stays low most of the time. He uses silence and small percussive hits instead of swelling strings, so the danger feels real instead of cinematic.
The writing by Chidambaram and Jithu Madhavan keeps coming back to identity and belonging. What do we carry from where we come from? Can you start over when your past keeps following you? The film answers that through action, not dialogue.
'Balan' lies, hides, and still tries to hold on to schoolbooks and small joys. The mother chooses him over everything else, again and again. Supporting actors, including Chandu Salimkumar, add texture without stealing focus. They feel like people you’d meet on the road, not plot devices. When the film sticks to this human scale, it’s compelling, and it stays with you after.
What doesn’t: Pacing issues and familiar thriller beats
The problem starts in the middle. Balan: The Boy wants to be both an emotional drama and a suspense thriller, and for about 30-40 minutes it gets stuck between the two. To build tension, it falls back on beats we’ve seen in other on-the-run stories. A narrow escape here, a convenient ally there, a last-minute chase. None of it is poorly made, but it makes the story feel less specific to Balan and more like a template. When that happens, the emotional weight we built in the first half thins out.
Pacing is the biggest drag. Because the film pauses for quiet character moments and then has to rush to get to the next plot point, the rhythm becomes uneven. There are stretches where nothing new is added to our understanding of the characters, and then sudden jumps where a lot happens and we don’t get time to process it. A tighter cut in the second act would have helped a lot.
Some supporting characters are also underwritten. While the leads are layered, the people in authority and on the margins often exist only to move the story forward. We understand their function, but we don’t feel them as people. That makes a few confrontations land with less impact. If we cared more about who was chasing them, the stakes would feel higher.
The central reveal about why they are running is emotionally strong. It ties back to the theme of identity and family. But structurally it’s familiar territory for Malayalam cinema. If you’ve watched films about secrets and survival, you can see parts of it coming. The emotion still works, but the surprise doesn’t.
Visually, the handheld camera and dim interiors are effective at first, but the approach doesn’t evolve. By the third act, we’ve seen the same visual language so much that it stops telling us anything new about the characters’ state of mind.
Despite these issues, the film never loses the performances. The leads stay restrained even in big moments, and that keeps you invested till the end.
BollywoodShaadis Rating: 3.5/5
Have you watched Balan: The Boy on ZEE5 yet? Let us know.
Also Read: Sid Wilson And Kelly Osbourne Met When She Was Just 13, Former Couple Shared A Significant Age Gap
