One of the gifts that the new Malayalam New Wave has given us is the freedom to be picky. The overall quality of post-2010 middle-of-the-road Malayalam cinema is so high, the range of gutsy themes so vast, and production values so stupendous despite minimal budgets, that being hard-to-please is not an indulgence for the traditional Malayalam film audience. It is a natural fallout of the wealth on offer.
It is in this context that Chidambaram's Balan: The Boy, written by Jithu Madhavan, arrived in theatres in June and recently on an OTT. Unlike the director's first two films, Jan.E.Man, and the all-India blockbuster Manjummel Boys, which featured large groups of man-children, Balan (itself meaning 'boy') is the saga of a mother determined to protect her son from her past.
