Udayananu Tharam

Udayabhanu (Mohanlal) is a hardcore worshipper of films and a talented assistant director, who learns to write and direct his own film at a time when the industry is filled with dubious filmmakers. Rajappan Thengummoodu (Sreenivasan) is a rather crooked friend of Udayabhanu and an aspiring and failed actor.

Udayabhanu finally prepares to shoot his first film based on his own script, he discovers to his horror that Rajappan has stolen his manuscript, and filming is underway with Rajappan playing the leading role, which eventually propels him to stardom. Udhayabhanu soon finds himself faced with a career and personal crisis, with his faltering relations with his actress wife Madhumati (Meena) contributing to the latter. She leaves the house later after Udayan causes chaos in the house after getting drunk, saying that he lost everything.

Later, with the help of producer Babykuttan (Mukesh), Udayabanu prepares to direct another film, but he is forced to cast Rajappan as the hero since he was the star with most market value at that time. Rajappan takes up the offer, since he is also at a plateau of his career, but refuses to co-operate and throws tantrums and causes maximum trouble when possible. He spends most of his time actively flirting with the actresses in the film.

Towards the end of the shoot, using a perceived insult as a ruse, Rajappan leaves the set leaving the film half way with the hope that this will destroy Udayabanu's career for ever. But Udayabanu devises clever tactics and shoots the remaining scenes with Rajappan without him even being aware of it.

At the end, the film is a critical and box office success, which also saves Rajappan from his damaging career, Rajappan realises his mistakes, admits publicly that Udayabanu is the real star and not himself and apologises to Udayabhanu.

• Mohanlal as Udayabhanu / Udayan
• Sreenivasan as Rajappan Thengummoodu/Superstar Saroj Kumar
• Meena as Madhumathi Udayabhanu
• Mukesh as Babykuttan
• Jagathy Sreekumar as Pachalam Bhasi
• Salim Kumar as Rafeeq
• A. K. Lohithadas as Director Prathapan
• Janardhanan as Madhumathi's Father
• Cochin Haneefa as Producer "Sona" Sisupalan
• Indrans as Vijayan Varkala
• Anand as Dinesh
• T. P. Madhavan as Bhaskarettan
• Bhavana as Gayathri, actress
• Deepika Mohan as Bhaskarettan's wife

The film was the directorial debut of Rosshan Andrrews who started as an assistant director in Malayalam cinema. He changed his name from Roshan Andrews to Rosshan Andrrews as per numerology before the film's release. The film's story was conceived by Andrrews, who prepared the story three year back but producers were not willing to take the film as they thought a film based on film industry would not work.He also approached Jayaram for the film,but he also rejected it as Rosshan Andrrews was a new director.He then narrated the story to Sreenivasan who developed it into a screenplay, which took two years, and introduced him to C. Karunakaran who agreed to produce the film. Sreenivasan also helped him to cast Mohanlal in the lead role.[2]

The film was well received in theaters and took the biggest ever opening for a Malayalam film until then. It grossed ₹3.12 crore (US$440,000) in two weeks from 41 screens in Kerala, with a distributor share of ₹1.38 crore (US$190,000).[2] The film was a major commercial success.[3][4]

Kerala State Film Awards

• Best Debut Director - Rosshan Andrrews
• Best Choreographer - Brinda

Asianet Film Awards

• Best Actor - Mohanlal
• Best Script Writer - Sreenivasan
• Best Cinematographer - S. Kumar

All lyrics are written by Kaithapram Damodaran; all music is composed by Deepak Dev.

• Udayananu Tharam at IMDb