Vaanaprastham, directed by Shaji N Karun, has won three major national awards, including best film, best actor for Mohan Lal, and best editing for Sreekar Prasad. The movie is about the identity crisis that a Kathakali artist faces in his life. Mohanlal plays Kunhikuttan, the Kathakali artist.

The movie is based during the late 1930's. At the age of 10, Kunhikuttan begins the long and difficult apprenticeship of the most noble Kerala art form, that of Kathakali, which is a combination of dance, pantomime and theatre. He is barely 18 when he is forced to marry Savithri. Their union turns out to be a very unhappy one, despite the birth of their daughter, Sharada.

While Kunhikuttan gains more and more recognition for his performances, his modest life is often difficult. He meets Subhadra, who turns his world upside down. She is a young woman married into high society and seems to be lost within her closed world, in which she can no longer distinguish between reality and fiction. She is consumed by the passion she feels for the hero of the Mhabharata Epic, Arjuna, as she truly believes that her first name is predestined: Subhadra is the lover of Arjuna. She falls in love, not with Kunhikuttan, but with the Arjuna he embodies on stage...