MOVIE REVIEWS |
INTERVIEWS |
YOUTUBE |
NEWS
|
EDITORIALS | EVENTS |
AUDIO |
ESSAYS |
ARCHIVES |
CONTACT
|
PHOTOS |
COMING SOON|
EXAMINER.COM FILM ARTICLES
||HOME
Saturday, July 15, 2017
MOVIE REVIEW/The Big Sick
Homesick And Culturally Off-Kilter In Chicago
Zoe Kazan as
Emily and Kumail Nanjiani as Kumail in "The Big Sick", written by Mr. Nanjiani
and Emily V. Gordon.
Amazon Studios
by
Omar P.L. Moore/PopcornReel.com
FOLLOW
Saturday,
July 15,
2017
Chicago may be a very sturdy Windy City but its Pakistani players get blown away
in "The Big Sick", a Judd Apatow-produced comedy-drama-romance directed by
Michael Showalter. Based on an autobiographical story scripted by actor
and stand-up comic Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon, "The Big Sick" attempts
to address cultural differences in a romance between a Pakistani male comedian
and a white American woman. The film falls woefully short in this and
other areas, and worse, packs other elements into a story that don't work
either.
Romantic comedy these days in U.S. films, especially Hollywood films, is rarely
done with any sense of intelligence or subtlety - but Mr. Nanjiani's dead-pan
charisma and banter engages for some parts of a sometimes subtle film that
doesn't deserve the level of commitment his personal story promises. "The
Big Sick" is proficient at the honesty and awkwardness of the romance between
Kumail (Mr. Nanjiani) and Emily (Zoe Kazan). There's little sentimentality
early on as the film and its editor cuts to the chase, which only makes the
ending that much more hokey, desperate and rushed.
The cultural differences in a post-9/11/01 America are examined in a very
perfunctory manner. Chicago's and the director's wind blows any examination
of culture off the pages of a script that likely delved deeper than the finished film
shows. In exploring the issues of cultural difference, family and assimilation in
a Trump America we are left with a bigoted shout about ISIS from a white male
audience member during Kumail's stand-up routine as he bids to make a big-break
in his career.
Worse is the constant apologizing Kumail does for being Pakistani. It was
depressing and angering to watch (at least for me), as is the film's
one-dimentionalzing of Kumail's Pakistani family, is laden with exaggeration and
racist stereotypes. Pakistanis do not talk in such exaggerated ways - and
I've talked to quite a few. The exaggerating is a comedy cliche that has
long turned cold and unfunny. Why did "The Big Sick" have to caricature
its Pakistani family? Why didn't Mr. Showalter humanize and make them the
real people that Emily's parents (solidly played by Holly Hunter and Ray Romano)
were? Neither that question, nor the issues "The Big Sick" portends to
examine, are sufficiently answered.
All the "look-at-the-weird-crazy-Pakistani-family" effect seemed designed to
make the film's white moviegoing audience feel more comfortable with them.
(The audience I was with reflexively laughed at everything.) There's never
an effort to take the Pakistani family Kumail is part of seriously. They
are the film's laughing stock, and the audience's ethnocentric projection.
One scene that tries to take the family seriously is insincere given all that
has preceded it. The dishonesty of the film regarding its exploration of
cultural differences in a romantic relationship in an increasingly hostile
America is the most insulting thing about it. The incessant caricaturizing
sank the film so much for me, and it never recovered to stay afloat.
The facile treatment of Kumail's family further undercuts "The Big Sick" and its
mission to look at how an illness forces people to re-examine their sense of
belonging and or alienation in the world. Regrettably the illness is
exploited for cynical effect in service of Hallmark card moments. That's
not to say that medically-induced comas aren't serious - they obviously are -
but it is only to reinforce the idea that when it comes to seriousness only one
group of people in "The Big Sick" are treated seriously and multi-dimensionally.
And that's sick, in and of itself. The film's title may also refer to the
illness of America. (Mr. Showalter's camera also captures some tiresome
comedy stage routines with a sideways lens that underscores the banality of the
culture Kumail is part of.)
Emily (Ms. Kazan), who has relatively little screentime, is an enthusiastic
person with charisma and a sharp sense of humor. We barely get to know her
before she's gone, a truncated figure in more ways than one. We never
learn about her struggles beyond an obvious one, and the melodrama that
punctuates the film just belongs elsewhere. (We barely get to know Kumail
either, and Emily even references this point in the film.) Some of the
petty things couples differ over in "The Big Sick" are discernably retained from
the screenplay by Mr. Nanjiani and Ms. Gordon. Yet that particular
authenticity alone, even with the adverse circumstances "The Big Sick"
chronicles, appear to be the only part of the script that works well or has been
retained for the movie.
Terry (Mr. Romano) has his racial blindspots as a white man and does things that
some white people - liberal or otherwise - often do, which is to solicit a Black
person's opinion about something pertaining specifically to Black people, rather
than about issues in the world in general. Terry asks Kumail his thoughts
about 9/11/01 - as if somehow Terry would expect Kumail to give a response
inconsistent with prevailing conventional wisdom. Kumail however, does
Terry one better with some snappy satirical responses. Kumail, whose
family arranges prospective marriage partners for him, is a smart character, the
smartest in "The Big Sick", but is also the loneliest and, dare I say, the most
tragic ("mulatto", for lack of a better word) of 21st century romantic comedy.
Only late on in Mr. Showalter's film do we get a true sense of Kumail's utterly
rudderless and isolated position in Chicago, and his comedy friends and roomate
only reinforce the blandness of midwestern America and the frequent roboticism
of U.S. life itself - in its colloqualisms, behaviors and language. The
futility and quasi-oppression of technology, distancing and American corporate
culture on Kumail is expressed in three scenes (a montage as an Uber driver),
iPhone hang-ups and at a fast-food drive-through. (Would Kumail want to
bring up a family amidst such a nameless identity-stripping culture?) All
in all, Kumail is trapped, and while an escape seems to set him free, "The Big
Sick", an elephant looming large in its very own room, does not.
Also with: Adeel Akhtar, Aidy Bryant, Anupam Kher, Zenobia Shroff, Kurt
Braunohler, Bo Burnham.
"The Big Sick" is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of
America for language including some sexual references. The film's running time is two hours.
COPYRIGHT 2017. POPCORNREEL.COM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
FOLLOW
MOVIE REVIEWS |
INTERVIEWS |
YOUTUBE |
NEWS
|
EDITORIALS | EVENTS |
AUDIO |
ESSAYS |
ARCHIVES |
CONTACT
| PHOTOS |
COMING SOON|
EXAMINER.COM FILM ARTICLES
||HOME