The Big Sick Review – A Typical Story Told Beautifully

<p>When life deals you this kind of story&comma; it seems almost too good to be true&period; After all the difficulties and heartaches that life puts you through up to that point&comma; it would be hard to not tell people how weird it all turned out to be&period; Kumail Nanjiani met Emily V&period; Gordon and slowly fell for each other&period; They broke up after difficulties with Kumail&&num;8217&semi;s culture&period; That&&num;8217&semi;s until Kumail finds out Emily is very sick and has to deal with her parents after she is put in a coma&period; This is a story that is ripe for melodrama&comma; yet Nanjiani and Gordon &lpar;who also wrote the film&rpar; decided to let the film breathe into something meaningful&period; <em>The Big Sick<&sol;em> isn&&num;8217&semi;t telling us that it&&num;8217&semi;s a strong story worth telling&comma; it shows us&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Kumail and Emily set the stage with Nanjiani&&num;8217&semi;s struggles with stand-up comedy&period; Just this aspect of the film shows a major strength in <em>The Big Sick&period; <&sol;em>Instead of making comedians a driving point for most of the film&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s used just as a setting&period; The comedy club is a second home to Nanjiani and his comedian friends &lpar;Bo Burnham&comma; Aidy Bryant&comma; Kurt Braunohler&rpar; which naturally connects to his meeting with Emily &lpar;Zoe Kazan&rpar;&period; Every aspect that sets up the main story is established with a lively feeling instead of relying on genre tropes of the romantic comedy&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;127074" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-127074" style&equals;"width&colon; 960px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-127074" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;bagogames&period;com&period;s3&period;amazonaws&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;06&sol;27174111&sol;1280&lowbar;the&lowbar;big&lowbar;sick&lowbar;kumail&lowbar;nanjiani&lowbar;holly&lowbar;hunter&lowbar;ray&lowbar;romano&period;jpg" alt&equals;"TBS-1" width&equals;"960" height&equals;"638" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-127074" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;The Big Sick&comma; Amazon Studios&sol;Elevation Pictures&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>Over the course of two hours&comma; <em>The Big Sick <&sol;em>does a great job at balancing the humor of real life with the sadness&period; Judd Apatow&&num;8217&semi;s name in the credits of a film 5-10 years back would have been a sign that the movie was worth seeing&period; Over the last few years&comma; it&&num;8217&semi;s become more of a warning&period; Generally&comma; comedies at this length &lpar;and very often longer in Apatow&&num;8217&semi;s case&rpar; overstay their welcome by shoving in improv just because it&&num;8217&semi;s funny&period; Director Michael Showalter only adds that in when it services the story and pacing of the film&period; Truth be told&comma; <em>The Big Sick <&sol;em>flies by and yet you don&&num;8217&semi;t feel like you need to see more&period; The characters were a delight to be around&comma; but you understand that their story has been told&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>I personally have a hard time calling this a romantic comedy&comma; because our female lead is missing for over half the film&period; But that would dismiss the section of Ray Romano and Holly Hunter that makes this film into something great&period; Without turning them into horrible villains&comma; Nanjiani and Gordon successfully show their faults and love for one another &lpar;and their child&rpar; while still leaving them as an obstacle in Kumail&&num;8217&semi;s way&period; There&&num;8217&semi;s a delight to the way the relationship is presented between Nanjiani and Emily&&num;8217&semi;s parents&period; They all crack awkward jokes due to the situation and feel equally uncomfortable by the fact that they&&num;8217&semi;re all stuck together whether they like it or not&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;127075" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-127075" style&equals;"width&colon; 960px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-127075" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;06&sol;27174148&sol;kumail-and-his-big-screen-family-in-the-big-sick-e1498692825852&period;jpeg" alt&equals;"TBS-2" width&equals;"960" height&equals;"481" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-127075" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;The Big Sick&comma; Amazon Studios&sol;Elevation Pictures&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>There are so many strong creative voices behind <em>The Big Sick<&sol;em> that could overwhelm the tone of the film&period; Apatow&&num;8217&semi;s reputation for overlong comedies is well known and Showalter has a long history in absurdist comedy&period; Both figures take a step aside to let the natural humor come to such a small&comma; intimate story&period; All four leads are given room to play with the personas they have been given over the years and flesh them out in service of bringing someone&&num;8217&semi;s story to the big screen&period; Holly Hunter is as southern and fully realized as she&&num;8217&semi;s ever been and Ray Romano plays another great version of characters he&&num;8217&semi;s played before&period; The difference between what they&&num;8217&semi;ve done before and now is you can see far past the caricature&&num;8217&semi;s other films like this would probably turn them into&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The biggest praise I can give <em>The Big Sick <&sol;em>is that it feels like a true collaboration&period; There&&num;8217&semi;s no doubt that every single person that was a part of this was willing to compromise and give everything they had to tell this story&period; People disappear into the background of the film if they need to&comma; the direction isn&&num;8217&semi;t over-stylized and in your face&comma; even the performances never try to upstage one another&period; This is the most cohesive&comma; collaborative&comma; and honest film I&&num;8217&semi;ve seen in quite some time&period; To be honest&comma; I can&&num;8217&semi;t think of a bad thing to say about <em>The Big Sick&period; <&sol;em><&sol;p>&NewLine;