The Film Reports

Rating: 3.5 stars

Comedy, Drama, Romance

Where do I start with this? The Big Sick is an Amazon Original film, and features Kumail Nanjiani and Zoe Kazan in the lead roles. It’s a love story that is strongly inspired by real life events – writers Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon’s love story. As much as it focuses on how they met and fell in love, there are other central themes too. The second act is almost entirely about Emily Gardner ‘s (Zoe Kazan) mystery illness. And amongst all of that is Nanjiani’s Pakistani parents and how their culture doesn’t always agree with what Kumail wants for himself.

The film feels like it’s split into two distinct parts, pre Emily’s sickness and post Emily’s sickness. When the film starts off, we are introduced to Kumail as a struggling comedian, who moonlights as an Uber driver. His family is quite traditional, and his mother is in the process of trying to find a “good Pakistani girl” for him to marry. But after some light heckling from Emily during a set, he soon finds himself slowly falling in love. The first half is light, and funny, they also regularly show snippets of comedians (including Bo Burnham!) performing which is always fun.

The first half also brings up how his mother is constantly trying to find a “good Pakistani” woman for him to marry. I like how this was handled, it was more comedic than I perhaps would’ve expected the subject matter to be which means that someone who is not a POC may have an easier time understanding Kumail’s thought process. I kind of wish that his identity as a brown man was dealt with in more depth. It’s shown that he doesn’t identity with his parent’s religion anymore but that, and the weekly family dinners, are really the only scenes where that even comes up. I guess I wanted something more like My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) which is almost entirely about clashing cultures despite having a romance at the heart of it. 

The second half is much more sombre in tone. This is where “The Big Sick” comes in and Emily has to be put into a medically induced coma. Emily’s parents (played by Holly Hunter and Ray Romano) fly into to take care of their daughter which is where Kumail meets them and tries to win them over. This part was surprisingly fun. The parents were funny and spoke their mind, and I thought they were really well-written. The bonding scenes with Kumail were heart-warming.

The thing is, I’m not sure that I needed so much on Emily’s sickness. A good half of the film is taken up by this and while it wasn’t bad exactly, I wish there had been more of the light, romance that was advertised. Kumail Nanjiani and Zoe Kazan work so well . Their dialogue is probably taken from life (as much as can be anyway) and they’re so charming together. 

Did I hate this film? No! Absolutely not. But I do wish it had a slightly different focus than what it did have. I think it just tried to pack quite a lot into a short amount of time. It’s still entertaining and I’ll be on the lookout for any more Nanjiani and Gordon films but I probably won’t be returning to this.

Watch it: on Sundays.