THE BIG SICK

CERT 15, 119 MINUTES, OPENS 28 JULY

THE PLOT

In Chicago, unmarried Pakistaniamerican Kumail (Nanjiani) dreads his visits to his family for dinner, where a succession of eligible young women just happen to drop by, carefully selected by his mother for marriage potential. What his folks don’t know is that Uber driver and stand-up comedian Kumail has a girlfriend, Emily (Kazan) – who is white. Emily leaves the relationship when she realises she is a shameful secret in her boyfriend’s life, but these dramas become secondary when she develops a rare, life-threatening condition and is placed into a medical coma by her doctors. Enter her parents Beth (Hunter) and Terry (Romano), who aren’t too impressed with what they’ve heard from their daughter about her duplicitous ex.

WHAT’S RIGHT WITH IT?

Romcoms often struggle to contrive to keep their central pairing apart, throwing in confected misunderstandings, but this one doesn’t have to bother with fake devices: the events of The Big Sick are all true. Yes, the plot description may sound like the storyline of a lurid soap opera, but Nanjiani wrote the screenplay with wife Emily V Gordon about their own extraordinary courtship. The grounded realness pays rich dividends, with comedy that rings true and characters that are vividly relatable. And while the medical scenario inevitably sidelines a loveable Zoe Kazan in the film’s second half, compensation comes from a firecracker Holly Hunter and a surprisingly textured Ray Romano as the out-of-their depth parents.

WHAT’S WRONG WITH IT?

Recreating events in his life that happened more than a decade ago, Nanjiani, 39, is perhaps now a little old for the role.

VERDICT A winner with critics and audiences at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year,

The Big Sick sparked a bidding war, selling to Amazon Studios in a rich $12m deal. As a smart alternative to the summer season of big-budget action, check out a US indie comedy that’s fresh, funny and – in the final analysis – gloriously romantic.