If you’re looking for something light-hearted, yet humorous and grounded, The Big Sick might just be the romantic comedy for you. 

The movie follows Kumail, a Pakistani comedian whose humour tends to be self depreciating and related to his own culture. He meets Emily at one of his shows and they hit it off, and end up going home together.

They eventually end up getting into a serious-but-not-quite relationship, but broke off the relationship halfway through the movie, due to Kumail worrying about having an arranged marriage. 

I thoroughly enjoyed the humour of Kumail’s extremely traditional family, being from an Asian culture myself, it’s easy to identify with some aspects of the family dynamics.

The core of the movie is when Emily suddenly falls ill with a mysterious sickness and goes into a coma, and how Kumail and Emily’s parents deal not only with the sudden distress, but also with each other. They end up bonding a lot over time, and understanding each other better. 

Although they have a happy ending, which was expected (there’s usually no other way for rom-coms to end), I loved the movie as it wasn’t just sappy and full of dumb love. It had heart, and a certain sense of realness to it, and I would definitely recommend this movie to anyone! 

Written by: Gracia Wong and Robyn Lee