By Angel
Movie description: “Pakistan-born comedian Kumail Nanjiani and grad student Emily Gardner fall in love but struggle as their cultures clash. When Emily contracts a mysterious illness, Kumail finds himself forced to face her feisty parents, his family’s expectations, and his true feelings”
Story
The narrative didn’t hook me until the main conflict was introduced. I didn’t connect with the protagonist right away until I started to see his strong emotions developing towards the woman he was falling in love with. The first act felt like a generic romantic comedy, not all the jokes and romance worked for me. Bo Burnham was really the one to make me laugh out loud before the crazy second act kicks in. The story really intrigued me when the love interest got sick because it forced the main character to learn more about her through her parents. Their interactions were hysterical and the time they spent together created a lot of authentic emotional depth. I was rooting for Emily to get better the whole time. The characters go through this positive change together, but the decisions made in the conclusion contradicted their feelings and made me care less about the relationship.
Cinematography
To me, great cinematography is when the visuals are contributing to the storytelling. A film should SHOW us what’s going on rather than tell us. When it comes to analyzing cinematography, simply, I ask myself, “Was this film nice to look at?” Then I can choose to get in depth and look for whether colors were symbolic, placement of characters in the frame, composition, lighting, shadows, and point of view.
Was The Big Sick a nice film to look at….definitely! I loved how intimate it felt. The cinematographer made the movie look and feel so personal and real.
Performances
Holly Hunter steals the movie. She played the mother who knew everything about her daughter’s relationship and filled the role with intimidation and sarcasm. One of her best performances.
Ray Romano was great in this, he really surprised me. He managed to make me more invested with his relationship with his wife then the main relationship of the movie. He perfectly embodied shame.
I wasn’t too impressed with Kumail Nanjiani’s performance. His humor fell flat for me and I never truly believed the pain of his character. There’s a lot of potential in him, I can’t wait to see him lead another movie.
Everyone else in the cast did a great job at delivering the comedy and drama that was necessary as their characters.
Music
The music is serviceable, didn’t really elevate the movie in any way for me.
Theme
The lessons I got from The Big Sick: Lying will cause emotional pain and shatter relationships, don’t take people for granted, forgiveness takes time and effort to be earned, experiencing other cultures can allow you to broaden your respect towards others.
Thanks for reading my review! I think everyone should see this movie because it’s an original love story that deals with the subject matters in a realistic way. I found The Big Sick to be enjoyable and sweet.
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