Cross-cultural romance under political microscope in ‘Big’
Showalter aims for a breakout hit
LOS ANGELES, June 22, (RTRS): When Pakistani actor Kumail Nanjiani and his American wife Emily Gordon wrote a film about the surreal circumstances that brought them together, little did they expect that their love story would be put under a political spotlight.
“The Big Sick” explores Nanjiani’s cultural conflict as a Pakistani Muslim comedian in a post-9/11 America. His life is further complicated when he falls in love with Gordon, played by Zoe Kazan, and goes against his family’s wishes that he marry a Pakistani woman.
The film, out in limited US release on Friday, is “coming out at a time when there’s a lot of anti-Muslim sentiment, there’s a lot of Islamophobia”, Nanjiani said in an interview.
“By depicting a Muslim family as like normal people, that’s its big political statement”, said Nanjiani, who is also the first Pakistani leading man in a Hollywood romantic comedy.
The movie arrives after US President Donald Trump’s call during his 2016 election campaign for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States”.
Now in the White House, Trump is seeking to ban travelers from six Muslim-majority countries in a case awaiting a US Supreme Court decision.
Nanjiani, 39, best known for playing snarky programmer Dinesh in HBO’s comedy “Silicon Valley”, and Gordon said they did not predict the film would wade into a hot-button issue.
“It obviously feels so weirdly timely but it also does have this expectation on it that it really wasn’t built for”, Nanjiani said.
“Really, it’s just a love story”.
Struggle
In “The Big Sick”, Nanjiani’s family struggle with his decision to pursue comedy as they try to arrange a suitable marriage, while he secretly dates the smart, nerdy Emily.
Nanjiani’s world is upended when Emily falls into a coma with an undiagnosed illness and he keeps a bedside vigil alongside her parents.
“I think that Kumail is trying to show how similar their lives are to people who already live here in some respects. They’re looking for love and they’re trying to be happy and they’re also dealing with their culture”, Judd Apatow, the film’s producer said.
Fans of offbeat comedy know well from his years on “The State” and “Stella”, not to mention writing, coproducing and starring in the cult movie-turned-Netflix-series “Wet Hot American Summer”. Now Showalter is winning raves for his work directing “The Big Sick”.
His debut feature as director was 2005’s “The Baxter”, which he also wrote and starred in. Though it grossed less than $200,000 in theatrical release, it showcased Showalter as a director to watch. But he didn’t direct another film until last year’s starrer, “Hello, My Name Is Doris”. “It wasn’t like I had a script I was peddling and couldn’t get made”, he says of the break following “The Baxter”. “But I think maybe I was hoping that it would open some doors for me to be in consideration to direct some movies. And that didn’t happen”.
Not that he wasn’t keeping busy, creating shows like “Search Party” and “Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp” in addition to writing, directing and acting on a variety of programs. He also taught a screenwriting course at NYU, which eventually led to “Doris” — his cowriter was someone he met through the college. But in addition, he says he learned about “practicing what I preach in my teaching”.