Baby Girl Movie Review: Malayalam cinema was at a crossroads. Filmmakers were experimenting, audiences were craving depth, and the industry was searching for narratives that could resonate beyond the usual tropes.
It was during this period that the screenwriting duo Bobby–Sanjay made a decisive mark with Traffic. The film’s real-time structure, interlaced storylines, and careful emotional calibration felt revolutionary. It didn’t just tell a story; it created a rhythm of urgency and empathy that was rare in Malayalam films at the time.
Baby Girl Movie Review: Story and Structure
Fast forward to 2026, and Bobby–Sanjay are back with Baby Girl movie review, a project that clearly wants to revisit some of the narrative textures that made Traffic memorable. However, the cinematic landscape has changed. Audiences now demand subtlety, faster pacing, and fresh storytelling devices. What once felt innovative can now feel dated, and unfortunately, Baby Girl often lands closer to the latter.
Directed by Arun Varma, the film centers on a single, fraught day in the aftermath of a newborn’s disappearance from a city hospital. Sanal (Nivin Pauly), a hospital attendant, inadvertently triggers a full-scale police response when his instincts raise alarm.
Around this central crisis, multiple storylines unfold: the parents of the missing child grapple with raw grief, a stillborn mother negotiates her own silent anguish, and other peripheral characters thread into the narrative, each adding their own emotional weight. On paper, the structure promises intensity and poignancy.
The resemblance to Traffic is unmistakable. Baby Girl movie review employs converging narratives and simultaneity to generate tension rather than relying solely on dramatic escalation. But similarity alone is not the problem. The core issue lies in execution. The film’s pacing, visual style, and tonal cues feel tethered to an earlier cinematic grammar.
The kinetic energy that once defined real-time thrillers is replaced here by repetitive procedural sequences. Police cars crisscross city streets with the same measured urgency, radio chatter loops insistently, control rooms glow with screens that characters peer into mechanically, and CCTV footage becomes a narrative crutch rather than a tool of suspense. These devices, once effective, now weigh the story down, making urgency feel manufactured instead of lived.
Amid these mechanical sequences, glimmers of emotional depth occasionally emerge. A late, understated conversation between two mothers, each bearing immense grief, hints at the resonance Baby Girl movie review could have achieved with more narrative restraint.
In that moment, Lijomol Jose shines, her performance quiet yet piercing, providing the audience a rare window into authentic pain. It’s a shame the film allows such moments so little room to breathe; they arrive almost as an afterthought, leaving the emotional impact muted.
Performances and Characters in Baby Girl
Nivin Pauly as Sanal
Nivin Pauly’s Sanal feels underwritten, often inserted into the narrative without organic necessity. While he has moments of charm, the character rarely drives the story forward meaningfully. For fans of Nivin Pauly’s previous work, the performance may feel safe, yet the role doesn’t fully utilize his acting range.
In contrast, Nivin Pauly’s Sanal feels underdeveloped. His presence seems partly dictated by star casting rather than narrative necessity. The character doesn’t carry the story forward meaningfully, nor does it offer Pauly a canvas to explore deeper emotional or moral dimensions. As a result, his scenes occasionally feel ornamental, interrupting the flow rather than enhancing it.
As the investigation thread loses steam midway, the film increasingly leans on emotional beats and coincidental plot turns to maintain engagement. But these attempts at catharsis often feel orchestrated rather than earned. The screenplay, while structurally competent, struggles to align with contemporary audience expectations. By the climax, the urgency that the film initially promises has dissipated, replaced by a series of loosely connected emotional resolutions that don’t fully land.
Where Traffic felt like a pulse racing in real time, Baby Girl movie review resembles a heartbeat struggling to keep rhythm. The narrative ambitions are clear, the performances occasionally striking, but the overall impact is dulled by an adherence to a cinematic style that feels slightly out of step with the present.
The film’s intentions are noble — exploring grief, parental fear, and human resilience — yet the execution prevents these themes from attaining the emotional heights they deserve.
Ultimately, Baby Girl is a reminder of the delicate balance between revisiting successful formulas and evolving with the times. Bobby–Sanjay clearly understand storytelling architecture, but in this instance, the blueprint alone isn’t enough. Without adapting its language, pace, and visual rhythm to the contemporary viewer, the film risks feeling more like a homage to its creators’ past triumphs than a story that genuinely connects today.
For comparison, you can check our list of Top Malayalam Films of 2026 to see how narrative pacing has evolved in contemporary cinema.
In conclusion, while Baby Girl movie review has moments of quiet beauty and solid performances, it doesn’t quite bridge the gap between nostalgic narrative ambition and modern cinematic expectation. The emotional peaks are scattered, the procedural sections repetitive, and the star-driven moments underwhelming.
For viewers familiar with the duo’s earlier work, the film may evoke memories of what Malayalam cinema once celebrated. Yet for the current audience, it is a cautious tale — a film that reminds us that storytelling is never static, and even the most proven formulas demand reinvention to remain relevant.
If you want to explore similar narrative experiments in Malayalam cinema, check out Traffic movie review or read about the evolution of real-time thrillers.
