A messy road

Writer/director/producer Judd Apatow has a history of incorporating marriage- and family-honoring themes into very raunchy comedies. With The Big Sick, an indie rom-com that is earning rave reviews as it rolls out to theaters across the country, Apatow only produces. Perhaps that’s why, while the compelling marriage and family themes are still present, the comedy is far less vulgar.

The film is still rated R for regular profanity, and it’s clear, as we see them going to sleep and waking up together, that the main characters are in a sexual relationship. But in a new twist for anything Apatow-related, we never see a sex act or anything close to nudity. What we do see is a sweet, authentic meditation on what it feels like to fall in love and the messy road to commitment when no boundaries are in place.

Kumail (Kumail Nanjiani, best known from HBO’s Silicon Valley, playing himself) is a Pakistani-born Uber driver by day and stand-up comedian by night. His traditional Muslim parents, who sacrificed family and finances to give their children a better life in the United States, want him to marry a Pakistani girl. Following the dictates of the culture they left behind, they expect to play a role in arranging that marriage. But when grad student Emily (Zoe Kazan)—fresh-faced, funny, and American as apple pie—crosses Kumail’s path, their plans and his heart are thrown into an uproar.

Perhaps it’s because the script was based on the real-life courtship of Nanjiani and his wife that the romance in The Big Sick rings so true. There are no dramatic monologues in the rain or last-minute sprints to catch an airplane. The love that blooms here is quiet, and in its quietness, touchingly real. Establishing inside jokes, testing similar tastes, tentatively declaring affection—“I’m blown away by you”—all these milestones will draw sighs of recognition from plenty of young lovers (and plenty of us old lovers too). But what really makes The Big Sick stand out from the rom-com pack is the sensitive and intelligent way it deals with faith and family.

While it’s hardly a theological treatise, the film sensitively brings us into Kumail and his parents’ Muslim worldview. To many viewers raised in stricter Christian households, the tension between them will look familiar. In an attempt to make sure of their children’s belief, the parents demand rigid displays of piety and brook no expressions of doubt. Yet in employing such fearful, unexamined methods they hinder their kids’ chances of making their faith their own and ultimately leave them with no faith. This is where Kumail is, sullenly faking his way through his prayers and mouthing praises to an Allah he doesn’t believe in. Or, at least, hasn’t thought enough about to decide whether he believes in him.

The movie is similarly thoughtful in the way it treats Emily’s parents, Terry and Beth (Ray Romano and Holly Hunter). Though they’re far from perfect, for once, instead of ugly Americans, we see beautiful Americans, leading Kumail to ask a provocative question—why come to this country if you’re just going to think and behave as if you never left the old one? The sincere, if occasionally hilariously inept love and friendship Terry and Beth offer him changes the way he sees his world, as real love and friendship always should. In return, Kumail and Emily’s stumbles toward a committed relationship prod Terry and Beth to face the cracks they’ve been ignoring in their own marriage. The ultimate message is that, once we find love, vows are worth both taking and keeping.