The Family Man Review

What a series! After a long time, I fell in love with a web series. The Family Man is one of those web series for whose Season 2 I will eagerly wait for. 

You instantly connect with the incidents shown in The Family Man as they are based on the (real) events happening around us – the mob lynchings, the politics of language, and the caste/religion issues which eventually give birth to terrorism. The Family Man is all about the vicious cycle of hatred which many of us are fighting against since ages but have completely failed to curb. 

While narrating the different stories of non-acceptance, hatred, and violence, the makers have shed light on how each one of us, knowingly and unknowingly, are contributing to the snowballing of hatred and violence. There is a small scene of Srikant’s mother commenting on Suchi’s father’s language, advising him to speak in Hindi. If you are smart enough, that minute-long scene is enough to hit you hard where it hurts.

The Family Man is a perfect blend of intelligent script, excellent direction, and brilliant performances. I cannot imagine any other actor other than Manoj Bajpayee for Srikant’s role. He was flawless. He is extraordinarily ordinary and ordinarily extra-ordinary. The first few episodes where the main focus of the show was to show him a common man, he was fantabulous. At places, especially in scenes with his kids, all he does is give expressions and you burst out laughing. Hats off to the makers and Manoj Bajpayee for handling humour so well in a series where humour could have backfired, if not handled well. The kids were amazing too. You will fall in love with that little boy and before you know it, you get attached to him. In the scene where he is seeing playing with the gun, you may start praying for his safety. 

I would like to specially mention Neeraj Madhav, the actor who played Moosa here. In the first few episodes when he is seen begging for his life just so that he could speak to his mother, you want him to escape from custody. You believe his innocence. But when he shows his true colours, you want him to die. The transition of his character was convincing. 

Sharib Hashmi and Kishore Kumar G. as JK Talpade and Pasha were amazing. Since they have strong character roles here, weak actors could have spoiled it all. It would have all been about Manoj Bajpayee and not the team if JK and Pasha would not have been a great support. 

What I loved the most was how beautifully the balance between family life and work-life has been maintained – not by the characters, but by the makers. It is very difficult to keep oscillating the story between two extremes. If not handled with care, viewers would have either lost interest or could have been divided where one set of viewers would have loved the family life and the others would have wanted to see more of work-life. 

In short, The Family Man is a well-made intelligent show on intelligence which you can easily relate to. And yes, it’s about ordinary people undertaking extra-ordinary tasks. It’s about common people devoting their lives to save the common man and the country. It’s very real and much-needed in today’s time. 

The Family Man is highly recommended. Go watch it now. 

Where to Watch? Amazon Prime Video