Pranayam

Pranayam
Life is more beautiful than a dream
Directed by	Blessy
Produced by	P. K. Sajeev Anne Sajeev
Written by	Blessy
Starring	Mohanlal Jaya Prada Anupam Kher
Music by	M. Jayachandran
Cinematography	Satheesh Kurup
Edited by	Raja Muhammed
Production company	Fragnent Nature Film Creations
Distributed by	Maxlab Entertainments (Inside Kerala) Mohit Productions & Studio99 Films (Outside Kerala)
Release date	31 August 2011 (2011-08-31)
Running time	139 minutes
Country	India
Language	Malayalam

Pranayam (Malayalam: പ്രണയം; English: Love) is a 2011 Malayalam romantic drama film written and directed by Blessy. The film revolves around the love bound between the characters of Mathews (Mohanlal), Grace (Jaya Prada) and Achutha Menon (Anupam Kher).The film opened to critical positive reviews and was also a commercial success.

The film begins with Achutha Menon (Anupam Kher), a man in his late sixties arriving in the city to stay with his daughter-in-law and granddaughter after suffering a heart attack. He was a football player who had got selected in the State team but could never play for the team. He moulded his life and career to accommodate the romance in his life.

One day Menon sees his former wife Grace (Jaya Prada) in the elevator and collapses. Grace, who is staying in the same building with her husband, daughter and son-in-law, arranges for him to be taken to the hospital and even pays the deposit for the emergency treatment. Slowly their relationship is revealed as she is very anxious about his condition.

Grace's husband Mathews (Mohanlal) is a retired philosophy professor who has his own philosophy of life. He is now bedridden and requires his wife's help to accomplish the most basic day-to-day tasks. Their physical intimacy is an indication that they may have led a fulfilling life as a couple before the tragedy struck.

The children start acting up as the old couple revive their acquaintance. In the later half of the film, even Mathews joins the former couple with Achuthan helping Grace in manoeuvring her husband's wheelchair in rough terrains. The three take a trip to a beach resort together.

At the resort, Mathews has a stroke and is rushed to the hospital. At the same hospital, Grace has a heart attack and dies, while Mathews survives. The last scene is one where Mathew places flowers at her gravestone and Achutha Menon helps him and finally wheels him away off somewhere where one hopes the two friends have comfort and companionship for the rest of their years.

Blessy claims that has gone through almost 25 years of hibernation for Pranayam. He says, "For so many years I have been carrying the subject in me as a writer, journeying with it as visuals and words. I have now transferred that to the characters. It's like letting go of something that was your own until now. And that is painful." Blessy had discussed the storyline with writer-director Lohithadas, during the making of his Joker, in which he was the associate director. Lohithadas had told Blessy about how he had envisaged Mathews. After Bhramaram, Blessy had starting writing a story based on a few youngsters but didn't feel excited about it after a while as lots of similar stories were flooding theatres. Suddenly the story of Pranayam came back into his mind. About the scripting, Blessy says, "The interesting thing about this script is that even before I started writing it, what I had in my mind was its last frame. So I started developing the journey back from the last frame and completed it."