The Big Sick

(Warning: contains spoilers for The Big Sick)

It’s difficult to know where to start with real-life stories in films.  Can they be critiqued in the same way as a completely fictional film?  In the case of The Big Sick, it is a real-life story about a real-life event, where the writer and producer is the main character.  So…even if parts don’t make sense, or characters seem odd, that’s how it happened, right?

Image for The Big Sick

The Big Sick is an independent, inter-racial rom-com about the relationship between Kumail (played by Kumail Nanjiani), and Emily (Zoe Kazan), who meet, date and break up.  At the point of their break-up, the eponymous Big Sick appears and Emily winds up in a medically induced coma.  Unsure of whether to go (they have broken up after all) or stay (because he is a decent human being who wants to check if his ex is ok), he winds up meeting Emily’s parents - Beth and Terry - (Ray Romano and Holly Hunter) and the three become close while sharing this complicated, unfamiliar situation.

Other image you get if you Google The Big Sick

Beth and Terry are some of the most understandable and sympathetic characters in the film.  In the absence of being able to do anything useful for their daughter they resort to various fruitless tasks, keen to just fill in the time until she wakes up.  Terry diligently writes down every jargony medical term and medication used ("is that with a 'ph' or with an 'f'?") in an allocated notebook, while Beth ponders whether the hospital is the best one for her daughter ("it's ranked seventh") and tries to out-think the hospital staff. Initially suspicious of Kumail ("she tells us everything"), their relationship together is hesitant and sweet and becomes a different kind of parental as they go to watch Kumail's open-mic comedy performances, where they tackle Islamophobia and hecklers in a way that only parents would.  Through spending time with Emily's parents, Kumail realises how little he knows about his own and begins to rectify that in small ways, like asking which film they met at during their first arranged date.

Running parallel to this story line are two other storyline threads (and they do run parallel because those threads don't really converge).  One is about Kumail’s ongoing pursuit of being a stand-up comedian, playing open mic nights and hoping to get his big break while working for Uber to pay the rent.  The other (significantly more interesting) thread is Kumail’s family dynamic.  Kumail’s parents - Azmat and Sharmeen (Anupam Kher and Zenobia Schroff) are from Pakistan, and have moved to America to give their children more opportunities.  But they have strong ideas about their children maintaining Pakistani traditions - and every Friday night, Kumail's mum invites a girl to "just pop over" to meet him (with a photograph, resume, and ideally a semi decent knowledge of The X Files), in the hope it will lead to an arranged marriage with someone from the same culture ("in Pakistan, we just call it marriage").  Kumail's parents are unaware that he is dating Emily.  Emily is unaware that Kumail's parents are setting up an arranged marriage for him.

The development of Kumail's struggle between his Pakistani and American heritage is an interesting one, and certainly gives The Big Sick a unique selling point.  As a theme, it's been recently played out in Aziz Ansari's Master of None and poses a number of interesting points.  Kumail faces small, potentially racist comments and assumptions throughout the film which he bats away with weary good humour.  Some are well intentioned (Terry trying and failing to connect to Kumail:  "So...9/11...I've always wanted to...talk to someone [like you] about that."), some are more malicious (like the heckler who tells him to go back to ISIS "because of how he looks").  Kumail's parents acknowledge that they wanted their children to grow up in America, but constantly point out in small ways how Pakistan is better ("kulfi is better than icecream").  Kumail is keen to keep up appearances - he doesn't pray, but leads his parents to believe he does.  He doesn't want to break up with Emily, but is happy to let his mother continue to set him up every Friday night without fail.  He rejects their ideals, telling his audience one evening that he knows his career choice is not approved of ("it goes doctor, engineer, lawyer...a thousand other jobs...ISIS, then comedian"), but he still clings on to his heritage, performing in an excruciating one-man show ("do you feel that - that's the weight of Pakistan's history") for no real reason that's ever explained (and I wish had been explored more).  Certainly, a rejection of his parent's culture equals a rejection of them, and although this storyline plays out in the loosest of terms, there is a lot more to be mined here.  (For example, there is an odd moment where they speak Urdu in front of one of the many Pakistani suitors paraded in front of Kumail, not considering that someone from a similar culture and background would probably speak Urdu too, revealing perhaps a small insight into their own views on their American homeland.)  Understandably, if this is one of the "real-life" parts of the film, maybe this is not something that Nanjiani is ready to explore further yet. 

Co-produced by Judd Apatow, there are a lot of Apatow-esque tropes at play here.  Kumail would live happily in most Apatow productions, with his Shaun of the Dead poster, lack of furniture, dishevelled living arrangements, and unparalleled knowledge of B-list horror movies.  He slowly learns to better connect with those around him, and by the end of the film is taking a more active role in his own life (rather than allowing it to passively happen to him).  So far, so Apatow, and I have no qualms about any of those things (other than wishing Kumail would make his bed and wash his sheets).

Not art.  Not a good night's sleep either.

The more unfortunate Apatow trope at play is the portrayal of women, which isn't great.  There are 4 women to speak of - Emily, Beth, Sharmeen and Mary (a friend from stand up).  There are also a small parade of rejected suitors for Kumail.  Mary serves to further Kumail's stand up plot and not much else.  Beth and Sharmeen are good characters who become more interesting when described by their husbands (although definitely the most well defined women of the film).   The strangest thing to me in this whole film (and perhaps why this film hasn't particularly stayed with me) is that I have no real sense of who Emily is.  The film revolves around her, but by the end I know little of her as a girlfriend, a friend, a daughter.  She works as a Domestic Violence Support Worker (a very specific job title which is never mentioned again), and...maybe that's it.  There is little focus on her in hospital, there are no bedside vigils, there are no stories about what Emily is like.  This could be fine - it could be billed as a story about Kumail, Emily's parents, Kumail's parents, those interactions, the clash of two different cultures.  In which case the Big Sick of the title would just be the maguffin that catalysed the plot.  But it's described as a rom-com.  And although there is rom, and com, it's with a very thinly sketched Emily.  Again, maybe it's still too hard to write - it is, after all the real-life Emily and Kumail writing the story.  I do wonder what real-life Emily makes of this production.

Additional thoughts, comments and questions:

1. The quote on the Shaun of the Dead poster ("an absolute blast") was from zombie-meister George A Romero.
2. Adeel Akhtar seems to have been singled out for praise in some of the reviews I've read, but I can't actually remember his contribution to the plot.
3. The moment where Kumail tried to see Emily's apartment through her parents eyes (and edit accordingly) was quite sweet (as he hid a bag of cannabis from sight).
4. There is a good film in here.  But maybe the rom-com is dead?