The Big Sick

Kumail and Emily hook up after a comedy show in Chicago, where Kumail performs stand-up. Emily, a graduate student from North Carolina at the University of Chicago, claims to not want a relationship, but starts dating Kumail soon afterwards. Emily is White, while Kumail is the son of Pakistani-American immigrants who want him to quit comedy, pursue a career in law and marry a Pakistani woman. Kumail lies to them about preparing for law exams, and to appease them, occasionally meets women of their choice in an arranged marriage setup. One afternoon, Emily discovers the headshots of the Pakistani women Kumail has met, leading to an argument. They clash over cultural differences and their views on marriage, and Emily breaks up with Kumail. To move on from Emily, Kumail focuses on stand-up. His improved set brings him better audience reactions and an audition for the Montreal Comedy Festival. One evening, he learns that Emily has been admitted to a local hospital. When he goes to check on her, he is pulled aside by doctors, who pressure him to sign a medical release to place Emily in an artificial coma, believing him to be her husband. The doctors later explain to Emily's parents, Terry and Beth, that they are struggling to diagnose her. Kumail's visits to Emily at the hospital endear him to Terry and Beth. Meanwhile, despite undergoing surgery, Emily's condition does not improve. After missing yet another family engagement, Kumail is confronted at his apartment by his parents. When he confesses that he will neither pursue law nor believes in South Asian customs such as arranged marriages, his parents are scandalized. Later, Kumail flops during his Montreal comedy audition, after failing to crack jokes amidst his emotional turmoil. In the morning, Emily awakes from coma. She is diagnosed with adult-onset Still’s disease, and will recover fully. Terry and Beth celebrate, but Emily does not want to see Kumail and rejects his idea that they get back together. Feeling dejected, Kumail heeds his friends' advice to move to New York where he can grow his career. He informs his family about his decision and they bid him farewell, signalling a potential acceptance of his life choices. In New York, Kumail debuts a new set at the local comedy club. While generally well-received, he is heckled by an audience member who is revealed to be Emily. She smiles at him across the room, and as end credits roll, it is revealed that Kumail marries Emily after reconciling with his parents. == Cast ==

Development 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 Worldwide Acquisitions, Fox Searchlight Pictures, Focus Features and Paramount 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 against the movie due to South Asian women being portrayed as stereotypical and undesirable. Also, Vella Lovell, an actress who is not of South Asian descent, played a Pakistani love interest with a strained accent. In 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. The film expanded to 2,597 theaters on July 14, 2017, and was projected to gross $9–11 million over the weekend. 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. 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==