Kumail Nanjiani and Emily Gordon made tweaks here and there to the autobiographical "The Big Sick," a romantic comedy based on their own extraordinary romance. But the most unbelievable things are 100-percent true. Their relationship did, as in the film, evolve as Nanjiani's Pakistani-American family was trying to arrange his marriage. Their lives together were irrevocably altered when an illness forced Emily into a medically induced coma. And - most unlikely of all - Nanjiani did grow up idolizing Hugh Grant and styling his hair like him. "And you still kind of think that's the ideal hair to have as a human being," Gordon, gently chiding her husband and co-writer, said in a recent interview alongside Nanjiani. "It's gorgeous," Nanjiani retorts, proudly unapologetic. "He was like my ideal of a man." (Here Gordon cackles) "He still is. The first best-man speech in ‘Four Weddings,' when I look back, so much of my stand-up was aping the Hugh Grant delivery. I love that movie." In "The Big Sick" Nanjiani has filtered his undying love of rom-coms (particularly the Hugh Grant-Richard Curtis variety) through his own improbable experience in love. The film, directed by Michael Showalter and produced by Judd Apatow, has already been hailed as one of the year's best. Amazon plunked down $12 million for "The Big Sick" after its lauded Sundance Film Festival premiere in January. "The Big Sick" is a refreshing anomaly for many reasons. It's a tenderly personal film in the midst of the brutal blockbuster season. It's a major release starring a Pakistani-American actor (Nanjiani, famous to many for his role on "Silicon Valley"). And it's, by far, the most exciting romantic comedy to come along in years - a rare shot-in-the-arm for a moribund genre, one nearly left for dead after too many conventional mediocrities. "I would love it to have a comeback," Nanjiani said of the rom-com. "They would need to be different from the glut of rom-coms we had in the early 2000s. It would be good to see new, different versions of it." Lest anyone doubt his rom-com ardor, Nanjiani's conversation is punctuated by titles like "My Best Friend's Wedding," ‘‘Sleepless in Seattle" and, repeatedly, his beloved "Four Weddings and a Funeral." Nanjiani, 39, grew up immersed in American pop culture. He moved to the US at age 18 to go to Iowa's Grinnell College. He and Gordon (who's played by Zoe Kazan in the film) met in Chicago, where Nanjiani was a few years into his then-nascent, still nerve-rattled standup career and Gordon was a practicing therapist. Think of the modern romantic comedy and you're likely to picture Meg Ryan or Julia Roberts or Kate Hudson. It is, Nanjiani grants, "probably the whitest genre." And that's one reason why "The Big Sick" points the rom-com in a new direction. Many of the funniest and natural scenes in the film are of Nanjiani sitting around the dinner table with his Pakistani family. (Anupam Kher and Zenobia Shroff play his parents; Ray Romano and Holly Hunter play Emily's parents.) In one scene, Nanjiani watches YouTube videos on his phone while he's supposed to be praying. It adds up to a rarely seen snapshot of Muslim life in America, at a time when American openness to immigrants is severely challenged. Nanjiani is glad they made the film "before all the anti-immigration sentiment became so explicit." "We just wanted to make a movie about family and love," said Nanjiani. "We're very, very lucky because I think we would have had pressure to make a statement with it. The movie is coming out in a very different context than it was made. I like that it humanizes a group of people that are generally seen in a very specific way in American pop culture." - AP
