The Big Sick: Review

• This is a NON-Spoiler review for The Big Sick.

• Plot Summary: "Kumail Nanjiani is a Pakistani comic who meets an American graduate student named Emily (Zoe Kazan) at one of his stand-up shows. As their relationship blossoms, he soon becomes worried about what his traditional Muslim parents will think of her. Kumail finds himself developing a bond with Emily's parents (Holly Hunter & Ray Romano)."

• So I'm trying to catch up on this year's movies for my favorite movies of the year list. I've heard very good things about The Big Sick and I finally checked it out. So Kumail Nanjiani is becoming a very popular comedian that I haven't been too familiar with. I believe this movie is all autobiographical about his and his wife's story (not sure how that works). So I'm gonna judge this like it's a movie and not like it's a documentary just because it's autobiographical. This is probably going to be a shorter review because I don't really have anything to say other than this was a really good romantic comedy.

• I'd probably rank this as the third funniest movie of the year behind LEGO Batman and Thor: Ragnarok. It's not REALLY heavy on the comedy side. But there were quite a few lines that made me laugh out loud by myself. Because this movie's writing is really awesome. The conversations between Kumail Nanjiani and Ray Romano are the funniest parts of the movie to me. If I were you, I would go in expecting a comedy level of maybe a movie like The Intern. There's not constantly jokes left and right, but there are quite a few scenes that make you laugh out loud. So it's a very funny movie. It also felt like a modern but also classic Hollywood romance story. The romance between the two main characters I thought was very well written. They both sound like real life interesting charismatic people. It's just really fun to watch all the characters of this movie interact.

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• A good romance story with good writing is becoming more and more rare. Some of my favorites are Roman Holiday and You've Got Mail. ‪The Big Sick‬ also has similarities to the Steve Martin ‪Father of the Bride‬ movies as well. Kumail interacting with Emily's parents felt a lot like ‪Father of the Bride‬ but through the boyfriends perspective. And I think it adds even more to the type of story with the parents having to warm up to the new boyfriend by adding in the culture difference. Holly Hunter and Ray Romano are very entertaining in that part of the story. Ray Romano was really funny and did great with the depth his character had. He absolutely felt like a real-life dad. And I absolutely loved it when he interacted with Kumail.

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• Again, the writing is the best part of the movie. It's really funny and it has really good characters. One scene involving Kumail going to a drive-thru is my absolute favorite scene. And the writing stayed very tonally consistent (which a lot of movies have been annoying me with lately). Throughout the first two acts, I would have said this movie could have been nominated for Best Screenplay. A bad rom-com will seem very sappy and paint by the numbers. But when a good love story connects with you, the story beats hit you because you care. I cared about these characters, but I wasn't impressed with the whole last act really at all. And I know this is autobiographical. And it'd be ridiculous to say that someone's life story doesn't have a good final act. But again, I'm judging this as a movie and not as a documentary. I really really enjoyed this movie. I found myself smiling watching the modern classic Hollywood romance story and laughing out loud at the comedy. I just don't love the final act when it hits some of the cliche story beats. I recommend checking out ‪The Big Sick‬ which is on Amazon Prime now. My grade for ‪The Big Sick‬ is a B+