The Big Sick (15)

Four stars

Dir: Michael Showalter

With: Kumail Nanjiani, Holly Hunter, Ray Romano

Runtime: 120 minutes

THIS romantic comedy set in Chicago turns out to be quite the daring number.

There is the title for a start, conjuring up images of someone laughing at the carpet rather than the antics on screen. Not terribly appetising. Then there is the fact the film has at its heart a serious illness. Worked for Love Story, but that was a drama, and a downer.

Topping all that, the leading man and co-writer, Kumail Nanjiani, is competing for laughs with Ray Romano, famous for a television show called, with much justification, Everybody Loves Raymond.

How many obstacles does one filmmaker want to hurl in his own way?

Happily, The Big Sick makes a welcome recovery from all these potential setbacks to be that rare thing, a genuinely feelgood comedy centred around an absolute bummer of an event.

Kumail (played by Nanjiani) is a stand-up comedian/taxi driver. Watching him do his comedy thing one night is Emily (played by Zoe Kazan, star of Ruby Sparks and granddaughter of Elia). The two spend the night together. Despite a mutual insistence on keeping things casual, they are clearly crazy about each other. Two nice people finding love in a cold, hard world, how could there possibly be anything wrong with that?

To borrow the title of another rom-com, it’s complicated. Kumail comes from a Muslim family. His parents, who moved to America from Pakistan when their children were young, expect him to marry one of the many candidates who just happen to be in the neighbourhood whenever he goes home for dinner with the family.

None of the young women makes much of an impression, however, which is no problem as he has Emily. Kumail, you see, has become adept at compartmentalising his life, switching between tradition and modernity, his present in America and his past in Pakistan. But now the walls he has built between the different parts of his life are beginning to crack. Emily wants more, a future together, but to go down that road would involve too much of a risk for Kumail. “I can’t lose my family,” he tells her, and a bitter break-up ensues.

End of story, until he learns Emily has been taken into hospital. Forms need to be signed and her parents (Romano and Hunter) contacted. Could Kumail help? So opens a bizarre new chapter in the story, one best not gone into in any more detail lest it spoil what is in store.

One of the surprises is how confidently Nanjiani, who co-wrote the screenplay with Emily V Gordon, handles the material. Not for him tiptoeing around what some other comics might see as sensitive subjects or cultural taboos. In one scene, for example, he is in a diner, arguing with his brother about Emily. Their raised voices are attracting nervous glances from a white family at the next table. “It’s okay,” a cheery Kumail shouts across to reassure them, “we hate terrorists”.

Time and again he walks up to what might be a comedy red line for others and strides gleefully across, leaving the audience not shocked or appalled but genuinely amused and appreciative of a job well done. It helps that Nanjiani is a natural born charmer. It is also clear how much thought has gone into telling the story, and to getting the humour just right: not too soft, not too stark. The screenplay is tight as a drum, too, not always the case in a comedy produced by Judd Apatow, helmer of such sprawlers as Knocked Up and This is 40.

For all that, the story reaches a point where it is difficult to see how the writers and director Michael Showalter can possibly pull this one off. Which is where Romano and Hunter, old pros that they are, come in. There is still tough terrain to get through, but such is the vibe conjured up by those two that whatever happens we want to stick with this one to the end, see how it all turns out. For the definitive answer on that, stay for the credits.