The Big Sick review: This biographic tale of love found and nearly lost in the Big Apple is one of the best and loveliest comedies of the year so far.
The Big Sick review by Paul Heath, Sundance London 2017.
The Big Sick review
Taking its inspiration from the story of Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon, the well-known comedian and actor most famous for his role of Dinesh in the brilliant comedy series Silicon Valley, The Big Sick sees Nanjiani play himself while Zoe Kazan takes on the role of Emily.
We open to Nanjiani on stage a small comedy club where he is attempting to forge some kind of career in stand-up. Alongside him are his peers, each of them trying to do the same but also helping each other out along the way. One night, Kumail hears a heckler in the audience and responds to her following the show. Emily and Kumail obviously have an initial connection, but the former constantly resists committing to anything serious, but a couple of dates turn into a couple more and the two find themselves in a more committed relationship, both head over heels for one another in hardly any time at all.
The Big Sick review
In suburbia however, are Kumail’s deeply religious, very traditional Pakistani parents, his mother constantly attempting to find him a suitable wife whenever he comes around for dinner. “Look who’s dropped in…” is constantly heard to repeated hilarious effect during these family suppers and Kumail is seen continually adding more and more images of prospective ‘arranged’ wives to a cigar box he keeps in his small New York apartment.
Under constant pressure to meet each other’s parents, Emily accidentally comes across the cigar box, which forces the elephant in the room in that Kumail will likely be kicked out of the family if his to marry a non-Pakistani wife. The two have a fight and immediately split, however soon afterwards, Emily is diagnosed with a life-threatening illness and is forced into a medically induced coma – The Big Sick of the title…
I’ve probably gone into too much detail regarding my slightly lengthy detailing for of the plot as The Big Sick takes a good third of the movie to set itself up. Those familiar with producer Judd Apatow’s Funny People – his slightly more serious than usual movie that starred Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd and Adam Sandler, will know the kind of tone we’re dealing with here. Sharing similar themes, The Big Sick is a much better movie – mainly because the large majority of everything on show here really did happen and it’s so well written – again, because the two-main people involved wrote it.
The Big Sick review
Nanjiani performs himself with warmth, sincerity, humility and lots of humbleness, Emily very much portrayed – by the extremely talented Zoe Kazan – as the more hardened of the two. Obviously a deeply personal heartfelt story, The Big Sick is also very, very funny. A lot of the comedy comes from the scenes involving Kumail’s family. His brother Naveed brilliantly played by Adeel Akhtar (Four Lions, Pan). Emily’s parents also show up during The Big Sick, again solidly played by Ray Romano and Holly Hunter in a very rare comedic turn as Beth, a lovely portrait of a woman who was a very positive influence (eventually) in these two young people’s lives.
Everyone has a ‘story of us’, but Kumail and Emily have one which has one a little bit more unique to everyone else. While its clear as to how things end up, The Big Sick provides one of the loveliest, utterly-hilarious, though very sincerely heartfelt films of the year so far – a near perfect date movie too. It’s excellent.
The Big Sick review, Paul Heath, June 2017.
The Big Sick will be released later in 2017. It premiered in the UK at the 2017 Sundance London film festival.
