The Big Sick - Movie Review

Starring Kumail Nanjiani, Zoe Kazan, Holly Hunter, Ray Romano, Anupam Kher and Zenobia Shroff.
Written by Emily V. Gordon & Kumail Nanjiani.
Directed by Michael Showalter.

★★★½

This semi-autobiographical tale was written by real-life husband and wife Kumail Nanjiani and Emily Gordon. Kumail plays himself in the movie, and Zoe Kazan plays Emily. We see he's a stand-up comedian/Uber driver, and she's a therapist. They meet cute, they date, they break up, and then she gets a serious illness that puts her in a coma.

For much of the movie, we watch Kumail fall back in love with Emily while getting to know her parents (Holly Hunter, Ray Romano) at the hospital. It's certainly an awkward way for them to meet.

The movie also explores a lot of Kumail's Pakistani background, and how his own parents keep trying to set him up with a nice Pakistani girl. He can't bring himself to let them know he's fallen for a white girl.

The movie has plenty of laughs, a lot of heart, and it's nice to watch a movie that provides the perspective we don't often get to see in cinema.

Random Movie Stuff 5/20/11

- Joey King (Ramona & Beezus), Matthew Modine (Full Metal Jacket) and Tom Conti (The Tempest) have joined the cast of The Dark Knight Rises, starring Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, Anne Hathaway, Tom hardy, Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Juno Temple and Nestor Carbonell.

- Tom Cruise has officially signed on for Oblivion, a post-apocalyptic sci-fi actioner directed by Joseph Kosinski (Tron: Legacy). Cruise has Mission Impossbile 4 opening this December, and the musical Rock of Ages next summer.

- No word yet who she'll play, but Holly Hunter has joined the cast of Romeo & Juliet directed by Carlo Carlei, which will star Hailee Steinfeld (True Grit) as Juliet. Hunter has also joined the cast of Still I Rise, starring Maggie Gyllenhaal and Viola Davis as two women trying to change a public school in inner-city Pittsburgh.