Amoeba Music

Almost all of the better Judd Apatow joints (Cable Guy, Knocked Up, Superbad, Trainwreck, etc) have two big flaws in common: after some uproarious comedy, they end up going for the heart, therefore selling out the earlier, better raunch. They are also often ten minutes too long. In other words, Apatow’s world usually has third-act issues. The Big Sick, written by married team Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani, and directed by Michael Showalter - Apatow is one of eight listed producers - finally breaks this third-act curse and ends beautifully. It may become the first Apatow flick to garner a bunch of well-deserved Oscar nominations. In an era of funny but sloppy and rushed comedies, this is a perfect movie. It achieves the status of being “more than just a comedy,” like Annie Hall, for example, which is something that Apatow has been reaching for in recent years.

Co-writer Nanjiani stars as a struggling Chicago comedian who shares his first name, Kumail, and yes (SPOILERS), this is apparently a pretty-much, kinda-sorta, true story about how he and his wife Emily met and fell in love. Emily is played by Zoe Kazan, always an interesting actress, and her performance is so lived-in and real, it’s easy to overlook the casual brilliance of it. The conflict is that Kumail is a Pakistan-born American, and while his charming family humors his stand-up comedy dreams, they are insistent that he eventually marry a Pakistani woman. So when he meets and falls for Emily, he has to keep it a secret from them, and later, under the pressure of being disowned, he breaks up with her. But when an infection causes her to be forced into a controlled coma, he becomes attached to her hospital bedside, along with her complicated parents, the high-strung Southerner Beth (acting hall-of-famer, Holly Hunter) and the more laid-back and passive Terry (Ray Romano, in a new career-defining role).