The Big Sick Information

The Big Sick is a 2017 American romantic comedy film directed by Michael Showalter and written by Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani. It stars Nanjiani, Zoe Kazan, Holly Hunter, Ray Romano, Adeel Akhtar, and Anupam Kher. Loosely based on the real-life romance between Nanjiani and Gordon, it follows an interethnic couple who must deal with cultural differences after Emily (Kazan) becomes ill.

The film had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2017. It began a limited theatrical release on June 23, 2017, by Amazon Studios and Lionsgate, before going wide on July 14, 2017. One of the most acclaimed films of 2017, it was chosen by American Film Institute as one of the top 10 films of the year and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. With a budget of $5 million, it grossed $56 million worldwide, becoming one of the highest-grossing independent films of 2017.

Plot

Kumail is a comedian in Chicago trying to get his big break performing standup as well as a self-produced one-man show about his Pakistani background. His Muslim immigrant parents frequently set him up with young Pakistani women, expecting that he will follow their example of an arranged marriage; he is uninterested but tolerates the introductions. He also lets them believe he still shares their religious faith, though he has become agnostic.

During a standup show, Kumail is heckled by Emily, a white woman in the audience. He approaches her after the show and their one-night stand develops into an on-going relationship. Kumail does not tell his family about Emily, and his relationship with Emily is strained as he holds back, fearful of losing his family, who disowned one of his cousins after he married a white woman. Emily finds pictures of the women Kumail's parents have set him up with; they argue and she asks whether he sees a long-term future with her, given his family's expectations. When he says he doesn't know, Emily ends their relationship.

Kumail learns weeks later that Emily has been taken to the hospital after having fainted. A doctor tells him that Emily has a serious lung infection and must be immediately placed in an induced coma with tracheal intubation. He signs the permission form and calls her parents, Beth and Terry. Aware of their daughter's messy breakup with Kumail, they tell him he is not needed, but Kumail stays and the three become closer as they deal with Emily's illness. Beth and Terry attend one of Kumail's stand-up gigs, during which a racist audience member heckles Kumail, causing Beth to lash out. After, the three bond over food and wine.

Surgery is ineffective and the infection spreads to Emily's kidneys. Beth wants to transfer Emily to a different hospital, but Kumail and Terry disagree. Beth and Terry get into an argument, and Terry stays at Kumail"?s apartment, where he reveals that he cheated on Beth and regrets it, only realizing how much he loved her after it had happened.

Kumail's parents visit his apartment, angry that he is not taking their marriage suggestions seriously. Kumail tells them that he does not want an arranged marriage and no longer practices Islam, and reveals his relationship with Emily. His parents disown him.

Moments before an audition for the Montreal Comedy Festival, Kumail learns that the infection has reached Emily's heart. Distraught on stage, Kumail spends the audition tearfully recounting his fears about Emily"?s health, and fails the audition.

Emily wakes from her coma. The doctors explain she has adult-onset Still's disease, a rare and serious but treatable illness; Kumail inadvertently helped them diagnose her when he mentioned she had an ankle injury that was slow to heal. Still pained from their breakup, Emily tells Kumail to leave. Neverthless, Beth invites Kumail to Emily's homecoming party. Kumail asks Emily to take him back, but she refuses, reminding him that while he may have had a transformative experience during her illness, she was unconscious for the duration of it, and for her nothing had changed.

Kumail decides to move to New York City with two comedian friends. He tells his family about his plans and refuses to allow them to reject him. Emily discovers a video of Kumail's disastrous audition in which he spoke openly about his feelings for her and she goes to find him after his one-man show, saying she has something to tell him. Before she can, he tells her he is moving to New York City. He asks what she had wanted to tell him and she says only that she appreciates everything he did for her while she was in the coma and wishes him well in New York.

As Kumail prepares to depart for New York, his parents visit. His father tells him they are still angry, but gives him a dish of his favorite food and ask him to stay in touch. The film ends with Kumail performing in New York, where he is heckled by someone in the crowd; he sees that it is Emily.

Cast

• Kumail Nanjiani as Kumail
• Zoe Kazan as Emily Gardner (based on Emily V. Gordon)
• Holly Hunter as Beth Gardner, Emily"?s mother
• Ray Romano as Terry Gardner, Emily"?s father
• Bo Burnham as CJ
• Zenobia Shroff as Sharmeen
• Anupam Kher as Azmat
• Adeel Akhtar as Naveed
• Aidy Bryant as Mary
• Rebecca Naomi Jones as Jessie
• Kurt Braunohler as Chris
• Shenaz Treasury as Fatima
• David Alan Grier as Andy Dodd
• Vella Lovell as Khadija
• Linda Emond as Dr. Cunningham

Production

In December 2015, it was announced Kumail Nanjiani would star in the film from a screenplay written by him and wife Emily V. Gordon, while Judd Apatow would produce alongside Barry Mendel, under their Apatow Productions banner, while FilmNation Entertainment would finance the film. Michael Andrews composed the film's score.

Casting

In February 2016, Zoe Kazan joined the cast, along with Holly Hunter and Ray Romano in April 2016. Unlike many of the other portrayals in The Big Sick, Romano's and Hunter's roles in the film were not modeled after Emily V. Gordon's actual parents. Instead, Hunter said that she never contacted or spoke with Gordon's mother before playing the part, as she wanted to "feel my own freedom with the character". In May 2016, Aidy Bryant, Bo Burnham, Adeel Akhtar and Kurt Braunohler also joined the cast of the film. David Alan Grier was cast in The Big Sick after he met with Emily V. Gordon when she was a writer for The Carmichael Show. Grier's role was part of a larger subplot that was ultimately cut from the film's release.

Anupam Kher's casting in the film was reported in June 2016. He was directly contacted by Kumail Nanjiani himself, as Nanjiani's own father had recommended Kher play the role. According to Kher himself, his character's last scene in the film was the first scene he had filmed for the production. The Big Sick marks Kher's 500th appearance in a feature film.

Writing

The screenplay for The Big Sick is written by Emily V. Gordon and her husband Kumail Nanjiani and is loosely based on the real-life courtship between them before their marriage in 2007. According to Nanjiani, the idea to make a script about them was first inspired by the film's eventual co-producer Judd Apatow when the two met while appearing in a 2012 episode of the You Made It Weird podcast. Developed over the course of three years, the script has been called semi-autobiographical because, in addition to the two lead characters modeled after them, many of the events occurring during Gordon and Nanjiani's relationship are noted as being portrayed to an extent in the film.

Though not part of the original script, a real-life incident involving Holly Hunter heckling an unnamed player during a US Open tennis match inspired a similar scene in the film where Nanjiani's character is heckled during one of his stand-up sets.

Filming

Principal photography began on May 11, 2016.

Release

The Big Sick premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2017. Shortly after, Amazon Studios acquired distribution rights to the film, after bids from Sony Pictures and Fox Searchlight Pictures. The $12 million acquisition marked the second-largest deal of the 2017 festival. Lionsgate partnered with Amazon on the U.S. release, and spent around $20 million on marketing the film. It also screened at South by Southwest on March 16, 2017, where it won an Audience Award in the category Festival Favorites. The film began a limited release on June 23, 2017, before going wide on July 14, 2017.

Reception

Box office

The Big Sick grossed $42.9 million in the United States and Canada, and $13.4 million in other territories, for a total gross of $56.2 million.

In the film's limited opening weekend, it made $421,577 from five theaters (a per-theater gross of $84,315, the best of 2017 until Lady Bird in November), finishing 17th at the box office. The film expanded to 2,597 theaters on July 14, 2017, and was projected to gross $9-11 million over the weekend. It grossed $7.6 million over the weekend, finishing fifth at the box office. On July 25, the film crossed $26 million, becoming the second highest-grossing independent film of 2017.

Critical response

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 98% based on 252 reviews, with an average rating of 8.2/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Funny, heartfelt, and intelligent, The Big Sick uses its appealing leads and cross-cultural themes to prove the standard romcom formula still has some fresh angles left to explore." It was rated as Rotten Tomatoes' #1 summer movie of 2017. On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews, the film received an average score of 86 out of 100, based on 47 critics, indicating "universal acclaim." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale. According to a poll conducted by AwardsDaily in July 2017, polling one hundred critics, The Big Sick was voted the second best film of 2017 so far, behind Get Out.

In a review for the Toronto Star, Peter Howell gave The Big Sick four stars out of four, praising the film as "hilarious and heartbreaking", as well as applauding the performances of the entire cast. Richard Roeper similarly gave the film four stars out of four in his review for the Chicago Sun-Times, labeling it as "without a doubt one of the best romantic comedies I have seen in a long time." The Big Sick was also selected as an "NYT Critic's Pick" by Manohla Dargis of The New York Times. In her review, Dargis praised Michael Showalter's direction and the screenplay by Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani for "revitalizing an often moribund subgenre with a true story of love, death and the everyday comedy of being a 21st-century American.

While praising the lead performances of Nanjiani, Kazan and Romano, Robbie Collin of The Daily Telegraph wrote a mixed review for The Big Sick. Collin contends that director Showalter "never comes close to dampening down its leading couple's inextinguishable appeal." In a negative review for The New Yorker, Richard Brody wrote that the film "suffers from an excess of pleasantness, and this very pleasantness thins out its substance, blands out its tone, weakens its comedy."

Accolades

Award	Date of ceremony	Category	Recipient(s) and nominee(s)	Result
AARP's Movies for Grownups Awards	February 5, 2018	Best Supporting Actress	Holly Hunter
		Best Intergenerational Film	The Big Sick
Academy Awards	March 4, 2018	Best Original Screenplay	Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani
American Film Institute	January 5, 2018	Top Ten Films of the Year	The Big Sick
Austin Film Critics Association	January 8, 2018	Best Supporting Actress	Holly Hunter
		Best Original Screenplay	Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani
		Top 10 Films	The Big Sick
Cinema for Peace Awards	February 19, 2018	Most Valuable Movie of the Year	The Big Sick
Chicago Film Critics Association	December 12, 2017	Best Supporting Actress	Holly Hunter
		Best Original Screenplay	Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani
Critics' Choice Movie Awards	January 11, 2018	Best Picture	The Big Sick
		Best Supporting Actress	Holly Hunter
		Best Original Screenplay	Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani
		Best Comedy	The Big Sick
		Best Actor in a Comedy	Kumail Nanjiani
		Best Actress in a Comedy	Zoe Kazan
Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association	December 13, 2017	Best Supporting Actress	Holly Hunter
Detroit Film Critics Society	December 7, 2017	Best Screenplay	Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani
		Best Supporting Actress	Holly Hunter
		Best Ensemble	The cast of The Big Sick
Empire Awards	March 18, 2018	Best Comedy	The Big Sick
Florida Film Critics Circle	December 23, 2017	Best Supporting Actress	Holly Hunter
		Best Original Screenplay	Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani
		Best Cast	The cast of The Big Sick
Georgia Film Critics Association	January 12, 2018	Best Picture	The Big Sick
		Best Supporting Actress	Holly Hunter
		Best Original Screenplay	Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani
Golden Tomato Awards	January 3, 2018	Best Wide Release 2017	The Big Sick
		Best Romance Movie 2017	The Big Sick
Gotham Awards	November 27, 2017	Best Screenplay	Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani
Houston Film Critics Society	January 6, 2018	Best Picture	The Big Sick
		Best Supporting Actress	Holly Hunter
		Best Screenplay	Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani
Humanitas Prize	February 16, 2018	Feature - Comedy	Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani
IGN Awards	December 19, 2017	Movie of the Year	The Big Sick
		Best Comedy Movie	The Big Sick
		Best Lead Performer in a Movie	Kumail Nanjiani
		Best Supporting Performer in a Movie	Holly Hunter
			Ray Romano
Independent Spirit Awards	March 3, 2018	Best Supporting Female	Holly Hunter
		Best First Screenplay	Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani
IndieWire Critics Poll	December 19, 2017	Best Supporting Actress	Holly Hunter
London Film Critics' Circle	January 28, 2018	Supporting Actress of the Year	Holly Hunter
Make-Up Artists and Hair Stylists Guild	February 24, 2018	Feature Motion Picture: Best Contemporary Makeup	Kirsten Sylvester and Leo Won
		Feature Motion Picture: Best Contemporary Hair Styling	Tonia Ciccone and Toni Roman-grimm
Online Film Critics Society	December 28, 2017	Best Supporting Actress	Holly Hunter
Palm Springs International Film Festival	January 2, 2018	Career Achievement Award	Holly Hunter
Producers Guild of America Award	January 20, 2018	Best Theatrical Motion Picture	Judd Apatow and Barry Mendel
San Diego Film Critics Society	December 11, 2017	Best Supporting Actress	Holly Hunter
		Best Original Screenplay	Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani
		Best Comedic Performance	Ray Romano
San Francisco Film Critics Circle	December 10, 2017	Best Supporting Actress	Holly Hunter
		Best Original Screenplay	Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani
Santa Barbara International Film Festival	January 31, 2018	Virtuoso Award	Kumail Nanjiani
Satellite Awards	February 10, 2018	Best Film	The Big Sick
		Best Supporting Actress	Holly Hunter
Screen Actors Guild Awards	January 21, 2018	Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture	The cast of The Big Sick
		Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role	Holly Hunter
Seattle Film Critics Society	December 18, 2017	Best Supporting Actress	Holly Hunter
		Best Screenplay	Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani
South by Southwest	March 18, 2017	Audience Award: Festival Favorites	The Big Sick
St. Louis Film Critics Association	December 17, 2017	Best Supporting Actress	Holly Hunter
		Best Original Screenplay	Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani
Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association	December 8, 2017	Best Supporting Actress	Holly Hunter
		Best Original Screenplay	Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani
Women Film Critics Circle	December 17, 2017	Best Screen Couple	The Big Sick
Writers Guild of America Award	February 11, 2018	Best Original Screenplay	Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani