The Big Sick at Waterside Arts Centre
Tom Grieve, Cinema Editor
Real-life married couple Kumail Nanjiani (Silicon Valley) and Emily V. Gordon provide the script for one of last year’s biggest indie crowd pleasers with a co-written, adapted account of the troubled beginnings of their relationship. The Big Sick tells the stranger than fiction story of the pair’s early troubles as an mixed-race couple (primarily with Nanjiani’s Pakistani parents), and then the ways in which those difficulties were compounded when Emily became gravely ill and had to be placed into a medically induced coma.
Starring Nanjiani as himself, and Zoe Kazan as the fictionalised version of Emily, this lightly likeable comedy coasts by on an easy charm, without ever threatening to seriously interrogate any of the difficult subjects it raises. Watch out for heavyweight turns from veteran performers Ray Romano and Holly Hunter as Emily’s parents who arrive in town in order to look after their comatose daughter. Some viewers will bemoan the lack of spikiness in this typically slick Judd Apatow production, but the film finds enough genuine laughs to remain appealing as polished indie rom-com product.
