The Big Sick

''The Big Sick'' is a 2017 American romantic comedy film directed by Michael Showalter and written by Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani. It stars Nanjiani, Zoe Kazan, Holly Hunter, Ray Romano, Adeel Akhtar, and Anupam Kher. Gordon and Nanjiani wrote the film based on their relationship; it follows an interracial couple who must deal with cultural differences after Emily (Kazan) becomes ill.

The film had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2017. It began a limited theatrical release on June 23, 2017, by Amazon Studios and Lionsgate, before going wide on July 14, 2017. One of the most acclaimed films of 2017, it was chosen by American Film Institute as one of the top 10 films of the year and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. With a budget of $5 million, it grossed $56 million worldwide, becoming one of the highest-grossing independent films of 2017.

Plot

Kumail, an Uber driver in Chicago, is a struggling stand-up comedian with a one-man show about his Pakistani American background. His immigrant parents want him to apply for law school and set him up with single Pakistani women, expecting that he will follow their example of an arranged marriage, but he is uninterested.

After a show, Kumail has a one-night stand with Emily, a white psychology student, and they begin a relationship. Kumail does not tell his family, fearful they will disown him. After five months, Emily finds photos of the women Kumail's parents have set him up with. When he tells her he does not know if they have a future, she breaks up with him.

Emily is hospitalized with a serious lung infection and must be placed in an induced coma. Pretending he is her husband, Kumail signs the permission form for her to be put into a coma and then calls her parents, Beth and Terry. Aware of the breakup, they tell him he is not needed, but Kumail stays and the three become closer as they deal with Emily's illness. Beth and Terry attend one of Kumail's stand-up gigs, during which a racist audience member heckles Kumail; Beth defends him.

Emily's surgery is ineffective and the infection spreads to her kidneys. Beth wants to transfer Emily to a different hospital, but Kumail and Terry disagree. Beth and Terry argue, and Terry stays at Kumail's apartment. Terry reveals that he once cheated on Beth and regrets it.

Kumail's parents visit, angry that he is not taking their marriage suggestions seriously. Kumail tells them that he is no longer a practicing Muslim, does not want an arranged marriage, and reveals his relationship with Emily. His parents disown him. Before taking the stage for an audition for the Montreal Comedy Festival, Kumail learns that the infection has reached Emily's heart. Distraught, Kumail tearfully recounts his fears about Emily's condition and fails the audition.

When Kumail mentions that Emily had an ankle injury that was slow to heal, the doctors realize she in fact has adult-onset Still's disease, a treatable autoimmune disorder. Emily wakes from her coma and, still pained from their breakup, Emily tells Kumail to leave. Beth invites Kumail to Emily's homecoming party. Kumail tries to make up with Emily, but she refuses, not wanting to worsen Kumail's relationship with his family.

Kumail decides to move to New York City with two comedian friends. He tells his family about his plans and refuses to allow them to reject him. Emily discovers a video on YouTube of Kumail's disastrous audition and, realizing her feelings, goes to find him after his show. Before she can explain, he tells her he is moving. Emily tells him she appreciates everything he did for her while she was in the coma and wishes him well in New York.

As Kumail prepares to depart, his parents visit. His father tells him they are still angry, but gives him a dish of his favorite food and asks him to stay in touch. As Kumail performs in New York, he is heckled by someone in the crowd; he sees that it is Emily.

Cast

* Kumail Nanjiani as a fictionalized version of himself, an aspiring standup comic
* Zoe Kazan as Emily Gardner, Kumail's girlfriend. She is a fictionalized version of Kumail's wife Emily V. Gordon
* Holly Hunter as Beth Gardner, Emily's mother
* Ray Romano as Terry Gardner, Emily's father
* Anupam Kher as Azmat Nanjiani, Kumail's father
* Zenobia Shroff as Sharmeen Nanjiani, Kumail's mother
* Adeel Akhtar as Naveed Nanjiani, Kumail's brother
* Bo Burnham as CJ, a standup comic and Kumail's friend
* Aidy Bryant as Mary, a standup comic and Kumail's friend
* Kurt Braunohler as Chris, a standup comic and Kumail's friend and roommate
* Vella Lovell as Khadija, a woman Kumail's parents set him up with

* Jeremy Shamos as Bob Dalavan, a talent agent
* David Alan Grier as Andy Dodd, the owner of the Playground Stadium and MC for its comedy shows
* Ed Herbstman as Sam Highsmith, a standup comic who is not liked by the others
* Shenaz Treasurywala as Fatima Nanjiani, Kumail's sister-in-law
* Rebecca Naomi Jones as Jessie
* Kuhoo Verma as Zubeida
* Mitra Jouhari as Yazmin
* Celeste Arias as Denise
* Jeff Blumenkrantz as Dr. Wright
* Linda Emond as Dr. Cunningham
* Susham Bedi as Tina, Khadija's mother
* Rahul Bedi as Farhan, Khadija's father

Production

In December 2015, it was announced Kumail Nanjiani would star in the film from a screenplay written by him and wife Emily V. Gordon, while Judd Apatow would produce alongside Barry Mendel, under their Apatow Productions banner, while FilmNation Entertainment would finance the film. Michael Andrews composed the film's score.

Casting

In February 2016, Zoe Kazan joined the cast, along with Holly Hunter and Ray Romano in April 2016. Unlike many of the other portrayals in ''The Big Sick'', Romano's and Hunter's roles in the film were not modeled after Emily V. Gordon's actual parents. Instead, Hunter said that she never contacted or spoke with Gordon's mother before playing the part, as she wanted to "feel my own freedom with the character". In May 2016, Aidy Bryant, Bo Burnham, Adeel Akhtar and Kurt Braunohler also joined the cast of the film. David Alan Grier was cast in ''The Big Sick'' after he met with Gordon when she was a writer for ''The Carmichael Show''. Grier's role was part of a larger subplot that was ultimately cut from the film's release.

Anupam Kher's casting in the film was reported in June 2016. He was directly contacted by Kumail Nanjiani, as Nanjiani's father had recommended Kher play the role. According to Kher, his character's last scene in the film was the first scene he had filmed for the production. ''The Big Sick'' marks Kher's 500th appearance in a feature film.

Writing

The screenplay for ''The Big Sick'' is written by Emily V. Gordon and her husband Kumail Nanjiani and is loosely based on the real-life courtship between them before their marriage in 2007. According to Nanjiani, the idea to make a script about them was first inspired by the film's eventual co-producer Judd Apatow when the two met while appearing in a 2012 episode of the '' You Made It Weird'' podcast. Developed over the course of three years, the script has been called semi-autobiographical because, in addition to the two lead characters modeled after them, many of the events occurring during Gordon and Nanjiani's relationship are noted as being portrayed to an extent in the film.

Though not part of the original script, a real-life incident involving Holly Hunter heckling an unnamed player during a US Open tennis match inspired a similar scene in the film where Nanjiani's character is heckled during one of his stand-up sets.

Filming

Principal photography began on May 11, 2016.

Release

''The Big Sick'' premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2017. Shortly after, Amazon Studios acquired distribution rights to the film, after bids from Sony Pictures and Fox Searchlight Pictures. The $12 million acquisition marked the second-largest deal of the 2017 festival. Lionsgate partnered with Amazon on the U.S. release, and spent around $20 million on marketing the film. It also screened at South by Southwest on March 16, 2017, where it won an Audience Award in the category Festival Favorites. The film began a limited release on June 23, 2017, before going wide on July 14, 2017.

Controversy

There was backlash for the movie due to South Asian women being portrayed as stereotypical and undesirable. Also, Vella Lovell, a half White and Black actress who is not of Desi descent, played a Pakistani love interest with a strained accent.

In October 2021, Kumail Nanjiani said, "Our movie was the first one in a long time where there were multiple Desi female characters, and the first few you see are reduced...People wanted to see themselves. It’s something I completely regret. I would not do it that way now.”

Reception

Box office

''The Big Sick'' grossed $42.9 million in the United States and Canada, and $13.4 million in other territories, for a total gross of $56.2 million.

In the film's limited opening weekend, it made $421,577 from five theaters (a per-theater gross of $84,315, the best of 2017 until '' Lady Bird'' in November), finishing 17th at the box office. The film expanded to 2,597 theaters on July 14, 2017, and was projected to gross $9–11 million over the weekend. It grossed $7.6 million over the weekend, finishing fifth at the box office. On July 25, the film crossed $26 million, becoming the second highest-grossing independent film of 2017.

Critical response

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 98% based on 303 reviews, with an average rating of 8.30/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Funny, heartfelt, and intelligent, ''The Big Sick'' uses its appealing leads and cross-cultural themes to prove the standard romcom formula still has some fresh angles left to explore." It was rated as Rotten Tomatoes' #1 summer movie of 2017. On Metacritic, the film received an average score of 86 out of 100, based on 47 critics, indicating "universal acclaim." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.

In a review for the ''Toronto Star'', Peter Howell gave ''The Big Sick'' four stars out of four, praising the film as "hilarious and heartbreaking", as well as applauding the performances of the entire cast. Richard Roeper of the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' praised the film: "It is funny and smart and wise and silly, it is romantic and sweet and just cynical enough, and it is without a doubt one of the best romantic comedies I have seen in a long time." ''The Big Sick'' was also selected as an "NYT Critic's Pick" by Manohla Dargis of ''The New York Times''. In her review, Dargis praised Michael Showalter's direction and the screenplay by Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani for "revitalizing an often moribund subgenre with a true story of love, death and the everyday comedy of being a 21st-century American."

While praising the lead performances, Robbie Collin of ''The Daily Telegraph'' wrote a mixed review for ''The Big Sick''. Collin contends that director Showalter "never comes close to dampening down its leading couple's inextinguishable appeal." In a negative review for ''The New Yorker'', Richard Brody wrote that the film "suffers from an excess of pleasantness, and this very pleasantness thins out its substance, blands out its tone, weakens its comedy."

Accolades

According to a poll conducted by AwardsDaily in July 2017, polling one hundred critics, ''The Big Sick'' was voted the second best film of 2017 so far, behind '' Get Out''.

See also

* Satte Pe Satta. At minute 1:54:56 in ''The Big Sick'', the father of the co-star (played by Kumail Nanjiani) reveals that he and the mother saw ''Satte Pe Satta'' on their first date.

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Big Sick, The
2017 romantic comedy films
2017 films
American independent films
American romantic comedy films
Asian-American comedy films
Asian-American romance films
FilmNation Entertainment films
Films about comedians
Films about diseases
Films about interracial romance
Films directed by Michael Showalter
Films produced by Judd Apatow
Films scored by Michael Andrews
Films set in hospitals
Films set in Chicago
Films shot in Chicago
Films set in New York City
Films shot in New York City
Pakistani-American films
Apatow Productions films
2017 independent films
2010s English-language films
2010s American films