The Big Sick
"Doctors don't know. They're winging it like the rest of us"
We are all winging it. Everyday to one extent or another we aren't positive what we are doing is what we should be pursuing. We only have a limited unknowable amount of time to live and we spend it the best we can. We fuck that up often. Everyone does. Earlier this year on the The Leftovers a character during a wedding toast said to his wife, "sin is when you do something you know is wrong, but you do it anyway. But Fucking up is an honest mistake when you're trying to do the best you can. I will never sin again, but I look forward to a lifetime of fucking up with you". This is the best we can hope for in our world. Finding those people who we can fuck up with and love.
The Big Sick is about a short romance, turned medical scare tragedy, turned life altering experience that leads to an enhanced appreciation for that love & life we get. We typically change after extreme events happen to us. Death of a person you have a close relationship with, or near death happenings of our own. Rarely do good things really change us as often as bad. Things you lied about before seem trivial and pointless to spend energy on now. You get perspective on how fragile this thing is. As I type this I am driving and could die at any moment of my own recklessness. But I'm still doing it. Probably because I haven't been in a very serious car accident.
In this film Emily Gardner goes into a medically induced coma. She doesn't get to go through the changes others around her do. The movie beautifully deals with that, and how much pressure there can be on the one who experienced no change because they were in a physical stasis. Her boyfriend Kumail does get to. He deals with personal issues of his family. How in his culture there are arranged marriages and they brought him to America to give him a better life. There is an expectation that you will do what your parents want because of what they've given you. They raised you & you are a literal extension of them. If you go against their wishes is that a betrayal? Being honest even when that honesty will hurt the ones you love is so hard. But it's always better than keeping secrets. Something we usually have to learn the hard way.
The parents of Emily are reasonably dubious of Kumail and of every aspect of medical care of their baby girl. Beth & Terry Gardner are upset and attentive. Terry, a quiet & bad joke telling math teacher, and Beth the army daughter who doesn't take shit. They bring the parenting to the situation we all would want. There's that fear that nothing will be okay. But you don't have time to think like that. That helps no one. Being prepared, and trying to help in anyway possible is a full job for parents. Means there's less time for themselves. Sometimes those parents can bring the worst and best out of each other one day after the other in these situations. I loved seeing the relationships develop in this film.
I loved The Big Sick for its writing, performances (Zoe Kazan & Holly Hunter mostly), humor, honesty, charisma, and intelligence. But most of all for its ability to take the inevitable fuckery that comes with our existence and bring out the most crucial elements of our combatting grand insignificance. The little moments that will make 18 memories trigger into your brain about those nights that mean the most to you. How you hated waiting in that hospital for news. How the potential of losing someone feels so helpless. But the beauty is right there the whole time. The connections you make, the love you give, and the kindness you bring.
The good stuff. We all know the good stuff.