“The Big Sick” has as big of a heart of gold as the protagonists who lived through it.
The movie, which is loosely based on a true story of writers Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon, follows the relationship of fictionalized Kumail and Emily. Nanjiani plays himself, while Zoe Kazan plays Emily in the movie. In an interview with the LA Times, Gordon said that she wasn’t involved with the auditions for the movie version of Emily, as she thought it would be uncomfortable for the actresses coming in for the part. They choose Kazan for the role of Emily because Gordon thought Kazan was exactly like her.
When Kumail is first introduced in the film, he’s stuck trying to figure out what he wants in his life. He’s not getting a law degree like he told his parents — he’s performing stand-up in Chicago, working to become a finalist for a comedy show in Canada. His mom is trying to find single Pakistani women for Kumail, so that their family can continue the tradition of arranged marriages, but Kumail is falling out of his family’s beliefs, spending time goofing around in the basement playing video games or watching YouTube videos during the five minutes his family asks him to pray. Kumail is going along with his family’s beliefs because he’s afraid of being disowned by them. After doing a set for his comedy, he gets heckled by Emily, and the two slowly begin to develop a relationship with each other.
In the movie, after a big fight between the two occured, Emily fell sick and needed to be placed into a medically induced coma to stay alive. In real life, Kumail and Emily were dating for about a year when Emily got an infection causing her to be placed into a medically induced coma for a little over a week and a half. Using the hospital incident added stakes to the movie for Kumail’s character to get his act together and grow up.
The biggest strength to “The Big Sick” is the sincerity to it all. Everybody is so incredibly likeable, it is easy to root for all of these people to succeed.
There also is a great scene in the hospital cafeteria. I won’t spoil it, but when you get to it, brace yourself. It just might be the best comedy scene of this year.
Ray Romano and Holly Hunter are fantastic as Emily’s parents; they remind of me of my own parents a little bit. All the frustration with the hospital’s doctors and wondering why Emily can’t be taken out of the coma yet hits close to home.
“Doctors, they don’t know what they’re doing; they’re just winging it like everybody else,” Emily’s mom says at one point.
One of the biggest complaints about this movie so far is that it ran for too long. “The Big Sick” clocks in at 124 minutes, aligning with other Judd Apatow movies including “Knocked Up” and “Trainwreck,” also being over two hours long. However, in “The Big Sick,” every scene felt necessary for the story it was telling. Every scene ties itself to how Kumail and Emily fell in love and moves the story along. Audiences can really see Kumail growing up when he’s hanging out with Emily’s parents while she is in the coma. Having it run longer allowed more time for each of the main characters to breathe and become fully developed.
Michael Showalter was a great choice for the film’s director, as he was able to capture and portray a wide spectrum of scenes and emotions. There’s a couple of moments when Kumail has a meltdown from all the stress going on with his relationship with Emily, and during the comedy festival tryouts it becomes a great blend of comedy and drama. “The Big Sick” is so unbelievably thoughtful it hurts. I couldn’t stop smiling throughout it.
In a summer of fantastic movies, “The Big Sick” is worthy of being in the top spot for the best of the year. There’s so much love and care put into this, hopefully it opens more opportunities for the two to write more movies or other projects.