Sightlines · reception

How The Big Sick was received

2017 · Michael Showalter · The Big Sick on Sightlines

The arc

A Sundance 2017 sensation that became the year's feel-good indie hit and an Oscar screenplay nominee; it's since settled from 'instant classic' to a warmer, slightly more contested spot as the flagship of the late-2010s rom-com revival.

What’s debated

The recurring debate is over its treatment of the Pakistani women Kumail's family sets him up with — critics, especially South Asian women writers, argued they're played as punchlines while the white love interest is idealized, and that discourse still flares up whenever the film is discussed.

Its footprint

Kumail's deadpan 9/11 joke at the dinner table ('we lost 19 of our best guys') is the film's most-quoted moment, and 'wanna watch an X-Files?' became shorthand for a certain kind of nerd flirtation; the film itself became a touchstone for arguments that the rom-com wasn't dead.

Where it stands

A beloved modern rom-com standard — the 'actually good recent rom-com' people recommend to skeptics, and a staple of best-of-the-2010s comedy lists.

Did you know? Amazon bought the film at Sundance 2017 for $12 million — one of the festival's biggest sales ever at the time — and the screenplay, based on Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon's real-life courtship, went on to earn the married couple an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay.