THE BIG SICK

THE BIG SICK is the story of comedian and comic actor Kumail Nanjani and his wife Emily V. Gordon before they were married and wrote this film together—how they met and the rest of it—the plot points of which are probably familiar to everybody by now since the story has been exposed throughout social and cultural media for weeks if not months.

Pakistani-American boy falls for "white" "American" girl (with seemingly no heritage other than "white"—somehow all the "white" ethnicities I grew up dealing with the realities of, including my own Irish-American one, have become blended into the simple category "white" these days) and the clash of cultures and backgrounds creates the story.

It's a good movie, an often pleasantly funny and moving romantic comedy that makes some good points about love crossing boundaries that in the end are always, or almost always, arbitrary anyway, no matter the traumas of history. Nanjani is a modest star who plays himself unselfconsciously, and Zoe Kazan plays Emily with zest and charm, winning our hearts the way she does Nanjani's.

All the actors are good, with lots of real comics doing stand up and off stage jokes that had me laughing pretty hard at times, and the actors playing each of the lead character's parents did as well. It's worth seeing.