Finding Superman
Finding Superman is Jami Todd’s screenplay of Sanjay and his son Jami’s adventurous road trip in the pursuit of an old comic book Superman 61 which has an underlying poignant story attached to it. This story of father-son duo not only threads various elements that are wrong with the contemporary America skillfully but also provides an insight into the segregation that Indians had suffered from fellow countrymen a few decades ago. Despite its all- encompassing nature, the story never sidetracks and solely focuses on Sanjay’s conviction that ‘Everything is magic’.
We find ourselves in the waiting room of a sombre hospital as the story opens introducing Sanjay to us. Sanjay, a short elderly man with his roots in East-India, strikes a conversation with a 5year old girl about an advertisement on the TV. The opening scene being set in the hospital renders a special element to the story that is revealed in the end, and this scene also establishes the character of Sanjay while he leaves an envelope with money with the little girl after seeing her mother argue about the insurance and the deficiency in money for hospital charges. With this, he walks out of the hospital and we then hear his name called by a nurse. The style of writing contributes to the profoundness that is due largely to the compassionate and self-sacrifice aspect of Sanjay’s character.
Jami is Sanjay’s son who works in a federal bank head office. Jami is what is wrong with the corporate world, he hardly has time for lunch let alone one with his father. Sanjay is a self-made and unrestrained man who can take care of himself regardless of the situation and the place, this point is consistent all along; he finds his way through the labyrinth of cubicles to reach Jami with a little map he made during his previous visit. Jami joins Sanjay to go out for lunch, but hardly has time to look up from his phone and talk to his father. Sanjay after being left all alone in a restaurant after Jami receives a call for a meeting contemplates the change that has befallen his son; he now chases money leaving behind fundamental things.
Central to all that is happening in the story lies the comic book – Superman 61. For reasons unknown to Jami, Sanjay pursues that book as long as he can remember. Through a series of well-scripted flashbacks, we plumb into the past of Sanjay and the circumstances that had led him to the United States. We witness the harsh reality of caste-based segregation in India, and the impotence of the low-caste to fight back even when the lives of their loved ones are at stake. It is written in the most genuine ways possible, giving out an unbiased, fully understood view of the situation of people in India. With a sincere effort to portray a truly beautiful story, the writer succeeds in narrating it with great lucidity.
While Jami agrees to go on a road trip with his father to Metropolis, he makes sure that they will back in New York in a couple of days. The story takes us through unplanned, unwelcome and some fortuitous turn of events, leaving Jami and Sanjay in the company of artists traveling through America. Stevie’s monologue about her reasons to leave her journalist job and travel around with some random artists in a mini-bus, and Sanjay’s monologue when he defends the Superman are very crucial in buttressing the intentions of the idea behind this story.
Finding Superman is about the belief of Sanjay that a man can be anything if he sets his mind on his passion. Sanjay learns this from his father Ram, who does everything in his capacity to make sure that his son is unfettered in this unjust world. The writer makes it evident through the story how Sanjay relates himself to the Superman and his justifiable reasons to do so. The repetitive assertions of Sanjay about how the sacrifices made by the parents are what a man is made of is justified at the end, when he shows Jami the words written by his father in Superman 61.
‘People doing what they love don’t retire.’- dialogues like these are what make a story attain completeness; they are simple, yet their existence is vital. The prolific dialogues exchanged between characters speaking their own reasons and ideas to do certain things in life that will influence the prospective audience and readers are the manifestation of the writer’s ability to deliver his beautiful imagination into a lucid narration. Finding Superman is an index of writer’s understanding of the world that surrounds him. It is commendable, the way he delivered it through this script.
