From Dubai therapist and theatre regular to Malayalam thriller sensation: Farzana Palathingal’s leap of faith in ‘Balan: The Boy’

Dubai: "From 6am to 6pm I was an occupational therapist in Dubai. From 6pm till midnight, I was a theatre artist at The Junction in Alserkal."

Not exactly the making of a movie star. But that leap of faith has transformed Dubai-raised Farzana Palathingal into Malayalam cinema's breakout talent, thanks to her riveting debut in Balan: The Boy, out in UAE cinemas now.

In Chidambaram's psychological thriller, written by Jithu Madhavan, Palathingal plays Amma, a morally complex mother whose desperate choices will frustrate, divide and haunt audiences long after the credits roll. It's a startlingly assured performance that belies the fact this is her feature film debut.

"Dubai has played such a big part in my life," Palathingal tells Gulf News.

"As soon as I turned three, I moved there and my formative years were there. That's where my memories were built, where the roots of my friendships were made. I'm very thankful to Dubai because it completely makes it so limitless. You get to spend time with and meet people from different walks of life, and it gives you a much wider horizon. It's definitely shaped me."

When Balan: The Boy released, Palathingal hoped audiences would connect with the story. She never imagined what followed.

"Absolutely not," she says when asked if she expected her life to change overnight.

"When you have a little dream like, 'I want to be part of a movie,' that's all you're thinking of. But once that film is out there, whatever happens with it, you kind of have no idea. You create a story with a bunch of people who come from different places and then you just give it to the audience. It's truly up to them to decide where it has to go."

The audience clearly did.

"I'm really grateful and very happy that audiences have welcomed the story and the characters with so much love. They're still watching the film. In fact, a lot of people have come and told me they've watched it twice and three times and kept going back to the theatre. That has made me super happy."

The Dubai years

Before Malayalam cinema came calling, Palathingal was another Dubai youngster figuring out her future.

She knew one thing with certainty.

"I knew that I didn't want to become an engineer or a doctor, which is what my entire family entails," she laughs.

Instead, occupational therapy caught her attention for deeply personal reasons.

"My brother has ADD and ADHD, so when we were growing up I would see him visit therapy and I would see what happened there. I thought this is a very interesting job. You get paid to play with children—that's great. Let me just try this out."

She studied occupational therapy in Manipal before returning to Dubai.

"But I was also doing theatre on the side, apart from my day job."

For three years, she balanced both worlds.

"I spent three years like that. I really wanted to focus on one thing. Even though I loved both of these things very much, I couldn't choose either. So eventually I picked something else altogether, which was screen acting."

Finding the stage

She found her answer at The Junction in Alserkal Avenue.

"When I came back to Dubai, I was wondering, 'Who do I join? How do I make this happen? I want to be on stage.'"

"I went there to watch a play and thought, 'This is the place.' I waited for their next casting call, auditioned and got my first play, Venus in Fur."

"It's such a lovely black-box theatre. You have this intimate space with so many strangers in front of you and you get to perform. You get to become anyone. You get to do anything and you won't be judged for it. I'm really grateful that Alserkal has that kind of space where artists can really hone their craft."

Eventually, she realised she had to move where the industry was.

"When we have epicenters like Mumbai and Kochi, where the film industry grows, you need to be in the city to be able to network. That's when I quit my job and moved to Mumbai."

The gamble paid off.

"He messaged me and said another casting director in Kerala was auditioning for a film directed by Chidambaram. I sent my introduction tapes and pictures. They called me that night, I sent in my auditions and that's how they found me."

She laughs at the suggestion that Chidambaram discovered her in a Dubai café.

"I wish! Wouldn't that be a much more fun story?"

Finding Amma

One of Balan: The Boy's greatest strengths is that it refuses to turn motherhood into sainthood.

Amma is messy, frightened, impulsive and, at one point, makes a decision so morally unsettling that viewers are left questioning whether they should continue rooting for her.

"That's what I loved about this story," she says. "Every character—not just the mother—is so grey. Like we all are. We are not good or bad; we are a mix of so many different shades."

"What I also love is that it gives audience members the space to debate and discuss who was right and who was wrong. It completely opens up that dialogue, which I truly appreciate, because this movie is not preachy. It doesn't come off as saying, 'This is the right way.' It completely gives the audience the space to morally judge them, and everyone comes from a different path. It depends on their background, their memories and what they've experienced in life."

When I tell her that one of the film's greatest triumphs is showing a mother who doesn't have everything figured out, she smiles.

"That's exactly why Amma spoke to so many viewers. She had a few cards that were dealt by life, and that's all she could play with. That's what she did."

But Palathingal had imagined an entire life beyond the screenplay.

"I personally love Amma, of course, because I played her."

"Even though a lot of it is not shared in the story, and a lot of it is open to interpretation as to how her past would have been, I, as an actor, personally had my own backstory."

"I even made up her own name. It's only me who knows her true name. Even my director does not know it himself."

"I know her backstory. I know where she's coming from. I know what she's been through. I could never not like her. I truly understand why she did the very questionable things she did. She truly tried her best."

Becoming Amma

The transformation wasn't just emotional.

Gone was the polished woman sitting across from me on Zoom. Amma is sweaty, exhausted, caked in mud and constantly on the move.

"As an actor, I was just hungry to take up anything. On many days, I was walking with soil on my face."

"I got to get dirty. I got to clean prawns. I got to get into muddy water. I got to have soil and grit in my nails. How often do you get to do that? Especially in real life."

"When you don't have to wear make-up, you don't have to come to the set earlier than everyone else. You just wake up like that and come."

The little co-star who made her better

Much of the film's emotional weight rests on Amma's relationship with her son, played by Adivishesh.

"Absolutely not," she says when I ask if she worried about the young actor stealing the spotlight.

"I'm looking at him as my son, right? As any mother would, you would want your son to outshine you. Why wouldn't you?"

"He was incredible. Rather than thinking, 'Oh my God, he's going to outshine me,' he challenged me to come up to that level. As an actor, I feel like he made me better than what I really am. He taught me so much."

Her years as an occupational therapist unexpectedly proved invaluable.

"I've worked as a paediatric occupational therapist. I worked with children with autism, ADHD and cerebral palsy, and most of my children were between the ages of two and seven."

"You're just there to guide them. That's exactly how I approached this film as well. You allow the child to lead. There's nothing for you to control. They're already present. They're giving you their time, their energy. They're simply being their authentic selves."

"If they're coming there and giving you so much to offer, the least we can do is let them lead and figure out what we can gain from that situation."

Fame, finally

So, does she feel like a star now?

"People have begun taking a double-take when they see me now. You're just walking on the street and they go, 'It's you! It's you!' As someone who has truly wanted this for so many years, it makes my heart so full."

But what matters more is why people stop her.

"People come to you and tell you what they truly felt about Amma, where it took them, and how it made them think about their own mothers. It's not just on the street. People message me on Instagram and they have so much to share."

"That's my stardom in a way. Audience members connect to the character more. They want to come to you and talk about your character rather than you as a star. That's how I would like to be remembered. I want people to remember my characters and where they took them."

What's next?

So, is she secretly scared of being a one-hit wonder?

"In life, I'm not really someone who fears things," she says. "Of course, I have my own anxieties, but I'm just looking forward to seeing what life has in store for me."

"So much has happened. I didn't imagine any of it. It's truly been a gift."

"I have full faith in the universe and in my life that whatever needs to come to me will come to me, and whatever gives me contentment will be there."

"Am I nervous? I'm a little nervous, of course. I have to be careful about the second movie that I choose."

"I'm looking forward to doing roles and characters that are grey, that are challenging for me and that have a lot to offer the audience and the story. I'm really looking forward to it. I'm very excited."