A predominant part of The Family Man’s narrative style was the way Manoj Bajpayee’s character Srikant Tiwari navigates his way through deadly missions in order to avert terrorist attacks on his country. Alongside he grapples with mundane domestic activities like dropping his kids off to school, regular house repairs, and dodging his wife’s persistent brickbats (perhaps the trickiest).
Even in the official trailer of the ‘The Family Man’ Season 2, Srikant Tiwari is discernibly struggling with quotidian domestic responsibilities besides dragging himself and feeling out of place in a run-of-the-mill corporate job with a niggling boss.
There exists an underlying structure that makes up the character’s dilemma. It is Srikant Tiwari’s inability, or sheer disinterest, to cope with the middle-class guy life. An uneventful life that is outside the sphere of his passion and professional pursuit as a world-class spy. A somewhat similar angle was previously shown in the 2008 film ‘The Hurt Locker’.
Helmed by Kathryn Bigelow (Oscar Winner and James Cameron’s ex-wife), ‘The Hurt Locker’ revolved around a daredevil team leader (played by Jeremy Renner) of a highly trained bomb disposal team (played by Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty). The film followed the team’s deadly missions across war-torn Iraq under their maverick leader. The small-budget film rightfully went on to win six Academy Awards.
In the penultimate scene of ‘The Hurt Locker’, after Jeremy Renner’s character completes his Iraq tour, he goes back to his civilian life. Then, in a thought-provoking scene set in a supermarket, the protagonist stands in front of a huge food rack, utterly confused about which ‘cereal’ to buy for his family.
We say thought-provoking because of the trivial choices he must make here. This stands in stark contrast to the life-and-death decisions he is used to taking on the war field fraught with danger.
Frustrated by his lackluster personal life, Jeremy Renner’s character then tells his infant son that there is just one thing he loves. And the next scene cuts to the start of another year-long series of missions with another bomb disposal squad. Implying thereby that disposing bombs is the thing he loves more than merely choosing cereals in a supermarket.
The dilemma and frustrations of Manoj Bajpayee and Jeremy Renner’s characters have been beautifully portrayed in ‘The Family Man’ and ‘The Hurt Locker’, respectively. Partially similar to what was shown in ‘The Hurt Locker’, Srikant Tiwari’s professional and personal lives have been beautifully juxtaposed to create a sublime dramatic effect. And that’s the distinctive aspect of the show.
Besides being an integral part of season one’s narrative, Srikant Tiwari’s dilemma also seems to be evident in the recently released trailer of the second season of ‘The Family Man’.
Instead of facing a huge food rack to choose cereals, Srikant Tiwari sits in a corporate office and looks at a computer screen in his lukewarm effort to figure out how not to be ‘A Minimum Guy’. Equally compelling we must say.
We’re hiring!
We are hiring two full-time junior to mid-level writers with the option to work remotely. You need to work a 5-hour shift and be available to write. Interested candidates should email their sample articles to [email protected]. Applications without a sample article will not be considered.
