Kumail Nanjiani carried this movie. I recently read a critic somewhere praising Daniel Kaluuya’s performance in Get Out. On the surface, Kaluuya’s performance may not have been Oscar worthy – he didn’t play a historical figure, undergo a physical transformation, or have huge scene chewing Oscar bait moments, et cetera. His performance was unobtrusive. Even his Oscar Moment™ crying scene was subtle. He was still the center of the movie, though. If we don’t identify with and believe Chris, Get Out doesn’t work. I think Kumail Nanjiani was similar in The Big Sick. My bar for him may be low because most comedians can’t act. The fact that he wasn’t distractingly bad at acting is kind of a miracle. Marc Maron did a barely passable job playing Marc Maron in Maron (he was great in GLOW, though). And there’s a reason that we’ve collectively forgotten about Jon Stewart’s acting roles. I thought Nanjiani brought some real, believable emotional honesty to the role… of himself.
It’s so trite to have a scene in a movie where the family asks the stand-up comedian when they’re going to be on Saturday Night Live. It’s also one hundred percent true. So, we have to leave it in.
I haven’t had the time or the desire to watch The Baxter all the way through, so, I was really surprised that Michael Showalter directed such a great movie. My opinions regarding the projects of former The State members can be a little volatile, particularly the Stella guys (if you didn’t know that I hate Stella, now you know, I hate hate hate hate Stella). I loved Wet Hot American Summer, hated the Netflix series, I loved half of We Came Together, and I have yet to see My Name Is Doris. But I really loved The Big Sick. It had heart, which is the thing that is missing from the State alum projects that I don’t like, usually they’re filled with snark.
Ray Romano was grounded and funny. The odds of me ever not hating Everybody Loves Raymond are slim but I guess that guy hasn’t been a comedian and actor for the past thirty years for nothing.
Every time I saw Holly Hunter, I kept thinking of her exchange in The Firm when David Strathairn says, “I love your crooked little smile,” and she shoots back, “It’s not my best feature.” I loved it when she almost took out that frat guy (and I’m a frat guy).
Ed Herbstman (of the Magnet Theater) plays a – what would you call him? hack? safe? – comedian with a local following and catch phrase. “They say Sam…” There was a guy in Rochester, NY like that. His material was making fun of mentally challenged people and his catch phrase was “Pickle!” Stand up is rough in many ways.
Every time I hear the name Zoe Kazan, all I think about is her grandfather naming names to the House Committee on Un-American Activities, is that bad? Her performance as the least typical rom com heroine ever was satisfying, though. Dude, I’ve been in a coma, to me you’re still a dick.
I can’t claim any authority on the knowledge of screenplay structure but I know how rom coms work. It was recently spelled out in this episode of This American Life. There’s the meet cute, the obstacle, the run, and the declaration. You’ve seen them all, particularly in that episode’s archetypal rom com When Harry Met Sally. The Big Sick had the meet cute (meeting at the comedy club) and the obstacle (Kumail’s Pakistani family who wants him to marry a Pakistani) and then a huge wrench gets thrown into the plot when the object of the protagonist’s affection goes into a coma. The movie goes completely off the rom com rails and it still works.
And Kumail was right about what he said at the Oscars, I’ll totally watch a Pakistani leading man in a movie. Though, I wonder how pissed Pakistanis are that the actors playing his family were all Indian.
