The Big Sick

The title points to at least two sicknesses in the film. The literal is Emily’s affliction, which graduates from swollen foot to an induced coma and possible death. The metaphoric is the crust of isolation and shame that religious groups, with their tradition of arranged marriage, impose on their young to secure their cultural continuity. The motive may be be proper but the effects can be destructive. The first sickness we can’t necessarily control; the second we can so should. 

There may be a third disease: “Always with the comedy.” As Kumail and his friends are stand-up comedians they are afflicted with the compulsion to take a comic perspective on everything. Kumail often has to add “That was a joke” to a line that doesn’t quite connect. 

To outsiders this could be a problem, as choosing comedy over law is a dubious career choice. But the comic impulse may prove more of a cure than an illness. It requires detachment and an engaged intelligence and wit. So it can be a salutary way of dealing with misfortune and of bridging gaps between people.

The latter is how Kumail uses his comedy to connect to non-Pakistani audiences. He also uses it to deal with his family, his break-up with Emily, her antagonistic parents, and briefly his loss of them all. It works. Note that it’s the comedian’s remark about Emily’s swollen ankle that points them in the direction that will save her life. The comedian observes and remembers and remarks.

Of course comedy has its limits. We see his act bomb when he can’t make jokes in the face of Emily’s danger. We’re told it bombed when he based it on his dilemma between losing his love and losing his family. That’s the risk when the comedy moves from Henry Youngman entertainer to post-Bruce/Sahl social commentator. To remind us of his serious intentions Kumail also works up a one-man show about Pakistan and the  issues a young Pakistani faces in North American life. 

Kumail grows up when he decides to be true to himself and to stop hiding. That is, he stops “pretending” or performing in his real life. He tells his parents he no longer believes in Islam and he has a non-Muslim girlfriend. If that means a break in the family it will be his parents’ choice not his. He will live with their abandonment, if necessary. 

The signs are good at the end. His brother visits his one-man show, his father comes to see him off to New York, and his mother refuses to speak to or look at him — but won’t send off him without his favourite biryani.   

As Kumail argues, why did his parents make by their admitted sacrifices to bring their children to America if not to become Americans? Parents do their children no favour by rigidly proscribing their lives, especially their emotional engagements. The culture most securely survives by bending with the new climes and times instead of importing and perpetuating old prejudices. 

Perhaps the key scene is the stand-up performance to which Kumail brings Emily’s parents on the eve of her surgery. Like any storyteller he lies to tell a greater truth. He claims he has to go headline the show — to get away from them. When they insist on coming he arranges to perform. 

That public performance transforms his personal life. Beth and Terry warm to his act. They are mobilized to defend him when a frat-type racist heckles him. Beth attacks back with such wit and spirit that we understand why they will accept Kumail in their family, and where Emily gets the courage and warmth to embrace him. Terry threatens more violence toward the heckler than wit but is equally validating. 
     The fissure in Emily’s parents’ marriage is also a healthy sign. It parallels the ethnic division in the larger. society Hence the observation, you can't really measure your love for someone until you’ve betrayed them. As Beth and Terry recover their intimacy and trust, Emily eventually takes Kumail back. And the Pakistani and non-Pakistani families will connect and enjoy each other. For our differences are not to keep separating us but to enrich our connection by our bridging them.