21 pop culture moments in 2017 that spoke to the zeitgeist

The Big Sick

Pretty much any way you describe The Big Sick, you do the film injustice. If you say that it’s a fictionalized retelling of the real-life relationship between co-writers Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon, it sounds dull. If you say it’s a rom-com in which half the main couple spends most of the film in a coma, it sounds precious. And if you emphasize that it explores Important Issues like health care and racism, it sounds unbearably preachy.

None of these descriptions get at what makes Michael Showalter’s sleeper hit special. They don’t convey how it juggles each element — the sweet (if not quite romantic) love story, the millennial sitcom, the culture clash subplot — with agility that could be mistaken for effortlessness.

The Big Sick doesn’t “tackle” issues so much as incorporate them, simply weaving them into the fabric of its characters’ lives. Kumail keeps his budding relationship with Emily secret from his parents, who support arranged marriage (or, as they say, marriage). While eating at a restaurant, he and his brother notice strangers eyeing them suspiciously. At one point, Kumail, whose stand-up career is floundering, puts together a one-man play that’s basically just him listing facts about Pakistan. It’s cringe-inducing but also, in a small way, audacious. For a person inhabiting a country that might view his presence as a blemish, it takes guts to stand up and declare, “This is who I am.”

And, lest it be forgotten, The Big Sick is hilarious. In particular, it has a 9/11 joke that made me cry with laughter and sticks a verbal middle finger in the face of American foreign policy in the 21^st century. It’s the most subversive line in a comedy — mainstream or indie, film or television — I’ve heard in ages.