The Big Sick

**The Big Sick** is a 2017 film starring Kumail Nanjiani, Zoe Kazan, Holly Hunter, Ray Romano and Anupam Kher, directed by Michael Showalter, written by Emily V. Gordon and Nanjiani and produced by Judd Apatow and Barry Mendel.

The film was a financial success as it generated a profit of $18 million.

## Plot

Kumail, an Uber driver in Chicago, is trying to get his big break performing stand-up comedy and self-producing his one-man show about his Pakistani background. His 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. After a stand-up show, Kumail approaches Emily, a white grad student who heckled him "positively" during his set. Their one-night stand develops into a relationship after she requests an Uber and he accepts and drives her home. Kumail does not tell his family, and his relationship with Emily is strained as he holds back, fearful of being disowned, which happened to his cousin who married a white woman. After five months, Emily finds photos of the women Kumail's parents have set him up with; they argue and she asks whether he sees a real future with her, given his family's expectations. When he says he doesn't know, Emily ends their relationship.

Weeks later, Kumail learns 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's cheated on Beth before 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, revealing 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, Kumail fails the audition when he tearfully recounts his fears about Emily’s health while on stage.

Kumail inadvertently helps the doctors diagnose Emily's actual problem when he mentions she had an ankle injury that was slow to heal. Emily wakes from her coma and is told about her condition: adult-onset Still's disease, a rare and serious, but treatable, illness. Still pained from their breakup, Emily tells Kumail to leave. Nevertheless, 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 asks him to stay in touch. As Kumail performs in New York, he is "heckled" by someone in the crowd; he sees that it is Emily.