**As John Lennon once sang: "Life is what happens to you when you are making other plans." This sums up The Big Sick up pretty good. Stand-up comedian Kumail Nanjiani was busy making plans. He was about to break through and met a nice woman, but then fate struck.**

The from Pakistan originated jokester tells all in this semi-autobiographical feel-good drama, not only did he take care of the screenplay he plays himself too. Kumail has a group of close friends, who he lives and works together with. After doing stand-up the bar is their place, where he also gets to meet the disarming Emily (Zoe Kazan). Their relationship doesn't really get a chance to flourish, starting off as an one-off adventure. But after, just as it seems to all head into the right direction, you can guess with which dilemma Kumail is confronted; The Big Sick.

The issue in the very fine written and natural acted third film by Michael Showalter is how far your responsibility reaches when a relationship actually seems to have flatlined. How big are the sacrifices you want to make, if the future is hopeless?

The Big Sick drastically changes colors and moods after a third of the runtime. What begins as a sweet love story (with the necessary fits), starts turning into a very complicated matter. Here Kumail also has to go to see Emily's parents, including an unparalleled Holly Hunter, whom he has never met and who keeps him at a distance. Showalter lets you deal with the change of tone indiscriminately. This, he accomplished because he makes sure the main characters are grounded and the new characters are gradually introduced with sufficient unpredictablity and sympathy.

If the Big Sick had only been a comedy about difficulties and setbacks (a le Apatow), the almost two-hour runtime would've been way too long. But Showalter does not have any trouble keeping his audience interested and invested for so long because of the good balance of drama and ~~comedy~~ lighter moments. The realy Kumail, who was partly responsible for the movie's production, has not only written off his own experiences with this very succesful feature film, but also know ot to look back with appropriate distance and self-reflection. His dialogues and subtle quips are a hit and the casting as Zoe Kazan and Holly Hunter as his direct co-stars were a master move. (Kudos to Romano's excellent performance too).

8.5/10