King’s Film Society Presentation: The Big Sick

King’s Film Society Presentation

Kumail Nanjiani, best known for his work on the HBO series Silicon Valley, stars in The Big Sick as Kumail, a Pakistani American stand-up comedian who works as an Uber driver on the side while he works out his routine in a Chicago club. When he’s heckled one night by a bright, blond graduate student named Emily (Zoe Kazan), the encounter leads to a funny, instant-karma one-night-stand. But what Kumail and Emily intend to be just one of those things eventually morphs into something more serious, a development that threatens Kumail’s relationship with his traditionalist parents, who are trying to fix him up with a suitable Muslim wife.

Nanjiani wrote The Big Sick with his real-life wife, Emily V. Gordon, whose serious illness, depicted on-screen, introduces yet one more complication into the already fraught culture clash of the story. Loosely based on the couple’s courtship and early romance, the movie moves easily between a seemingly endless series of false starts and setbacks, which never feel forced or plot-driven, but simply a reflection of the dizzyingly overdetermined experience otherwise known as Life. Kumail and Emily’s near ­instant recognition of each other as bright, slightly sarcastic observers of life feels just as organic and true as Kumail’s competitive banter with his fellow stand-up strivers (Bo Burnham, Aidy Bryant, Kurt Braunohler), which feels just as on-point as his dissembling with his mother and father (Zenobia Shroff and Anupam Kher) and the awkward first impression he makes with Emily’s parents, played with dazed concern and brittle rage by Ray Romano and Holly Hunter.

Directed by Michael Showalter

Starring Kumail Nanjiani, Zoe Kazan, Holly Hunter, and Ray Romano

USA · English

Rated 14A · 1h 59m

Tickets: $10 Adult, $9 with Film Buff Card, $8 Youth.

All prices include HST.