THE BIG SICK.

• Author: Krayewski, Ed
• Position: FILM - Movie review - Brief article

The Big Sick, a film about a Pakistani immigrant whose American girlfriend suddenly gets a mysterious illness, sounds ripe for heavy-handed political messaging. But the screenplay deftly dodges more hackneyed plotlines and themes, perhaps because it was based on the real lives of writer Emily Gordon and her husband, Kumail Nanjiani, who stars as a character closely based on himself.

The Big Sick avoids over-the-top commentary on the U.S. health care system and treats issues surrounding immigration and interracial relationships as matters of human, not political, interest. At its heart, the film is a coming-to-America story in which Nanjiani struggles...