It’s easy to watch a film like The Big Sick and think that it’s probably too long, to punish it as another Judd Apatow-associated piece that lacks for editorial integrity. But that would actually be incorrect. The Big Sick is a very thorough film. It’s thoughtful in its treatment of all its characters and it understands all of the very big concepts that it throws around including romance, culture and illness. The movie is written by comedian Kumail Nanjiani and his wife and fellow writer Emily V. Gordon. It details their complicated trek from a hasty one-night-stand to a fruitful relationship, and charts the messiness of life that can happen when pursuing your dreams, personal and professional. Their script is so personal yet so approachable. It’s incredibly smart about when to make jokes about its serious themes and when to treat them with reverence. More than anything, it earns a level of sweetness that is almost impossible to resist as you delve deeper into this heart-warming tale.
Nanjiani plays a version of himself, an unknown comedian working as an Uber driver and doing sets in the same Chicago club every week. When he’s playfully heckled by Emily (Zoe Kravitz) at his show, he takes an opportunity to speak to her afterward. After a first-night hook-up, Emily insists to Kumail that she is not seeking any kind of long-term relationship, which Kumail would be happy to respect if he wasn’t totally infatuated. What Kumail does not reveal is that his strict Muslim mother (Zenobia Shroff) tries at least once a week to arrange a marriage with a Pakistani girl, a ritual that Kumail detests but accepts as a custom to appease his family who is waiting desperately for him to give up his dreams of comedy. Kumail and Emily’s relationship continues to grow, but his secrets add up and when she discovers that he owns a cigar box filled with the pictures of the women his mother has introduced, they must face the reality of their relationship.
The Big Sick‘s first forty-five minutes are all a set-up, a bait-and-switch before we get to the film’s real story, which arrives after Kumail hears that Emily is in the hospital with a bad respiratory infection. With no other family and friends at the hospital, Kumail signs a waiver allowing them to put her in a medically-induced coma. The next day, Emily’s parents, Beth (Holly Hunter) and Terry (Ray Romano), arrive to see their daughter incapacitated and her ex-boyfriend sitting by her side. Kumail’s progressive entrance into Emily’s family gives him a new perspective on his love for Emily, but there is still the matter of his own family, and their expectations for him. Often, Kumail is left to feel that he has to choose between his life with Emily and his life with them. He’s often being told warning tales of men in his family who went on to start their own families with white women and how they’ve been forever banished from the customary dinners and get togethers. Kumail understands this reality but he chooses not to accept it, thus limiting his chances to truly commit to his love for Emily.
This is Michael Showalter’s third feature as a director. He did last year’s Hello, My Name is Doris, another film of shocking poignancy that belies Showalter’s more common comedic persona of post-modern absurdity. The Big Sick continues a trend of sharp, touching dramedies with strong performances and deceptively dense themes. He has a gift of telling these bittersweet tales and making them feel more low-stakes than they actually are, and he’s particularly interested in reminding audiences just how ordinary these kinds of seemingly extraordinary problems can be. Showalter is not a formalist and should never claim to be, but his treatment of Ninjiani and Gordon’s story seems note-perfect, allowing their strong, cringingly-honest script to shine. Looking at a print ad or a trailer can make this seem like a showcase for Ninjiani, but the Pakistani comedian is so good at allowing the whole cast as a whole to shine. Hunter and Romano, in particular, as the parents fighting several emotional battles, are terrific. Hunter is a delight, probably the film’s best one-character example of how the movie as a whole balances comedy and drama; while Romano is giving a very funny performance as a person who is fundamentally unfunny – which is not as easy as it seems.
The Big Sick is one of the best films I’ve seen so far this Summer. A touching romantic comedy that leaves few stones unturned and helps the audience understand just how fragile emotional connection can be.
Directed by Michael Showalter