As I write this review of The Big Sick, the first scene that comes to mind is one where our main character, Kumail, hears some bad news almost immediately preceding a performance. I felt a pang in my heart at how overwhelming that must be to go through something so terrifying while still being expected to put on a happy face for people you don't even know. Then I suddenly felt great remorse as I thought of how my favorite celebrities (like Regina Spektor, Chris Martin, Doug and Rob Walker) all have received bad news over the years, but still felt responsible, maybe even obligated, to perform for their fans (On a side note, I want to thank them for their brave faces and offer my support).

The Big Sick is a romantic comedy that does not put emphasis on romantic gestures of grandeur, and instead makes the usually-sidelined gestures the big ones. The ones that might have more to do with our main character improving himself as a person before improving his relationship with the woman he loves. That might be why, to me at least, the Film felt personal and poignant. How the sweetest true love moment Kumail (played by Kumail Nanjiani of Silicon Valley) and his girlfriend Emily (played by Zoe Kazan from Ruby Sparks) face is Emily admitting that she needs to take a dump and is insecure about doing it in his apartment. If you've been in a relationship of longer than a few months, you have had to overcome this hurdle, and it most likely turned out to be a defining moment of whether you would last or not. In a world of spelling the names of romantic partners in the sky and adorning them with flash mobs to the song "Closing Time", it is quite nice to see a film that is true enough to acknowledge that if you really love someone, you can acknowledge that they poop and still find them beautiful.

The film stars and was co-written by Kumail Nanjiani whom I know is famous in multiple other things but all I personally know him from is some John Oliver sketches. The screenwriting here is smart in focusing on the dramatic elements thus allowing them to bloom into comedic ones. Where sometimes you have to acknowledge the absurdity of a situation like having to wait in a bereavement room for your family member's doctor to give you non-fatal news. Or the obtuse move of making inappropriate conversation about 9/11 because you don't know how to keep certain curiosities to yourself. Sometimes a situation is so intense that you can't help but laugh a bit.

Judd Apatow takes a back seat here trusting the humor of director Michael Showalter who also directed Hello My Name is Doris, another hilarious movie that somehow finds optimism in the awkward moments. Here, the characters take a familiar metaphorical road trip but make unexampled stops along the way. In any other comedy where the leading man meets the parents of the woman he loves, we mostly get a Meet the Parents type treatment, where the, in this case female, lead is just a pawn for the male lead to get into forced shenanigans, become hated by the parents, then the liar-revealed cliché rears its ugly head. This film does the meet-the-parents plot, but the female lead is absent for most of it and the chemistry between Kumail and his girlfriends’ parents feels very genuine given the turn of events that led to this introduction. I give major credit to Nanjiani for writing it that way and Showalter for honoring that.