OVP: The Big Sick (2017)

Film: The Big Sick (2017)
Stars: Kumail Nanjiani, Zoe Kazan, Holly Hunter, Ray Romano, Bo Burnham
Director: Michael Showalter
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Original Screenplay)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

2017 has been, cinematically, a massive letdown in my opinion.  Yes, yes, I'm aware that if you try hard enough you can find good movies in any year, but let's be honest here-even by using that metric it's still been a bit of a heartbreaker at the pictures so far this annum.  That being said, film years always have their ways of throwing in a surprise or a picture that I didn't anticipate enjoying so fully, and this summer that has become The Big Sick, an unexpectedly moving look at the relationships between parents and children, even in the case where they aren't your parents.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is about Kumail (Nanjiani, whose name after texting it throughout the summer I think I have finally mastered spelling), a comedian who is stuck between his career aspirations (he seems to clearly be headed to bigger and brighter success even if he's in the "struggling" portion of his run), and his personal life, which is a combination of young Pakistani women that his parents are intent to set him up on a date with, and his true love Emily (Kazan), who as a white girl that was not chosen by his parents, stands against his parents' personal beliefs.  The film takes a turn when Emily discovers that he's been hiding her from his parents and breaks up with him, because she feels he's been leading her on, and then she goes into a medically-endused coma before they can reconcile.  The movie, instead of sticking to Kazan, follows Kumail's relationship with her parents Beth and Terry (played by Hunter and Romano, respectively), which is fraught since they dislike her over his treatment of their daughter, and then slowly they warm to him as they fall in love with the man that he hoped to be for Emily, but never could be.  It's a wonderful movie, one of the better romantic comedies I've seen, and probably my favorite of Judd Apatow's movies (which I always find to be good, but never have the lasting power that this particular film had in my mind).

Perhaps the weirdest aspect of the movie itself is that Emily is really a secondary character, more a plot device than an actual part of the screenplay.  Normally that would be a problem, and it perhaps contributes to the final third of the picture being its least successful part, but it also means that we spend more time with Kumail's relationship with Emily's parents, and with his own parents, which makes for a really interesting new chapter in the romantic comedy.  After all, if you're married you end up spending decades of your life as an additional family member with parents-in-law and siblings-in-law that you never chose for your life.  These people ingratiate themselves in your life in a major way, and yet there are very few movies that explore this weirdly forced relationship in a natural way, rather than just the condescending mother-in-law.  It doesn't hurt that Nanjiani has ace chemistry with Hunter and Romano (who are both wonderful, to the point where I hope this isn't the last time they're together onscreen).  Kumail gets to realize things about himself with them that he hadn't before, and we see him fall in love (platonically, of course) with these people and realize where his love for Emily comes from.  It makes the later scenes where Emily wholly rejects him, making him realize that he'll be losing three people he loves instead of one, all the more devastating.

Like I said, I didn't wholly love the movie (I never felt like Kazan fully understood her character's actions), but it's arguably the sweetest movie I've seen all year, and yet it's still pretty sharp.  There's a great scene with Vella Lovell who plays the only Pakistani girl from a cavalcade of women that his parents try to set him up with that clicks with Kumail later in the picture where she confronts Kumail, realizing that he won't ever love her since he loves Emily, coming to terms with her own loneliness that knocked me off my feet (Lovell, who also plays the hyper-chill Heather on Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, shows herself to be a pretty versatile actor completely abandoning what I'd expected from her here).  We also see the cruelty and desperation of being a struggling comedian (there's a running joke about Kumail's roommate not being a good enough comedian to ever be successful even though he hasn't realized that yet, which becomes a bitterer pill later in the picture when we make the connection that since Nanjiani did become successful in real life, there are so many whose dreams are crushed in that pursuit).  All-in-all, it's a movie with layers, where the romance is essential to propel the plot, but arguably the least interesting conversation in which the picture engages.

Those are my thoughts-how about yours?  Did anyone else really like the movie, or are you all still wounded by an Apatow allergy?  Where do you hope that Nanjiani goes next with his career, as he'll likely get another leading role after this movie?  And do you think that Holly Hunter might get her fifth Oscar nomination for the film (or that it could land in Original Screenplay)?  Share below!