![]() ![]() The Big Sick resembles three great, swoony sitcoms mashed together: It’s a typical meet-cute (between Kumail and Emily), a nuanced generation-gap story (between Kumail and his parents), and, well, an extremely atypical meet-cute (between Kumail and Emily’s parents). Showalter isn’t trying to disrupt the rom-com form. As such, The Big Sick does have the kind of lengthy running time (124 minutes) common of a Judd Apatow-produced movie, but with none of the drag, mostly because it’s cramming in more necessary story beats instead of more meandering improv. ![]() The film devotes ample time to setting up Emily as a character and making her connection to Kumail feel real, if tenuous, due to his fears of cultural disconnect. Nanjiani and Gordon’s script works by hugging to specific details, like a stand-up show Kumail has to perform in front of Emily’s parents mere days after meeting her, or the box of photos of potential brides, provided by his parents, that Kumail can’t seem to throw away. It’s the kind of holy-cow premise that only works for a movie if it’s true. Kumail, already wrestling with pressure from his parents to marry a Pakistani girl, was suddenly forced into the most intimate setting imaginable-Emily’s hospital bedside, alongs with her parents (played by Holly Hunter and Ray Romano). Nanjiani and Gordon’s story is a distressing one: Not long after they met and started dating, Emily (played in the movie by Zoe Kazan) mysteriously fell ill and was put in a medically induced coma. It may help that The Big Sick is directed by Michael Showalter, who adeptly balanced laugh-out-loud humor and sheer awkwardness in his last film Hello, My Name Is Doris. It’s neither a “struggling comic” film nor a straightforward romance, but somehow ends up being a terrific example of both, mixing in a healthy soupçon of culture clash and navigating its relationships with grace.īetter Schools Won’t Fix America Nick Hanauer The Big Sick, wisely, lets Kumail’s career serve only as a charming backdrop, rather than an emotional core. Kumail (Nanjiani plays himself) is a struggling stand-up comic living in Chicago-but wait, please, don’t click away! This is not the latest in the never-ending, navel-gazing trend of stories about struggling to make your way in the cutthroat world of comedy. Gordon (who wrote the movie together), but it’s also special for being such a sincere example of the genre. The film has a tremendous asset on its hands, in that it follows the remarkable real-life story of comedian Kumail Nanjiani and his wife Emily V. The general beats of the film are familiar and warm I quickly realized it had been a long time since I’d seen a romantic comedy about people who are generally supportive of each other, one free of violent subplots about kidnapping or murder, or many of the stoned, bro-y digressions typical of the last decade. Watching The Big Sick is like fondly reconnecting with an old friend you didn’t know you missed. ![]()
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