Can Kumail Nanjiani's Love Story Save The Romantic Comedy?

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" (in theaters Friday) after its lauded Sundance Film Festival premiere in January. It's a major release starring a Pakistani-American actor (Nanjiani, famous to many for his role on "Silicon Valley"). 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. When the two officially met two nights later, Nanjiani was drawn to Gordon's confidence and Gordon "liked the way his brain worked on stage" — like an early bit of Nanjiani's about the first deer that ate psychedelic mushrooms. 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. Nanjiani is glad they made the film "before all the anti-immigration sentiment became so explicit." Alternatively fueled and stalled by cultural differences and an ill-timed coma, their relationship contained no such prescribed beats. Imbued with a new awareness of life's fragility after the health scare, they moved to New York and got married.