The Big Sick is absolutely bursting with heart. As a lover of standup and a particular fan of Kumail and Emily, I fully expected to love this movie. I just hadn’t anticipated /why/ I’d love it. In heavier hands, the story might have written itself: love beset by tragedy, humor as a bulwark against hopelessness, light at the end of the blah blah blah credits. It would have tugged heartstrings, and it would have been earned. But The Big Sick foregoes tugging for a more precise operation, revealing tiny layers of truth behind the bleeding-heart drama. Truths about growing up and finding your voice; about the burden of family and religion and culture, and the delicate maneuver of “breaking free” without severing or diminishing their weight. About how guarded passivity strains our relationships, and uncompromising honesty becomes its own higher brand of love — messy, hurtful, and wholly undivided. Avoid spoilers if you want; this isn’t, ultimately, about a meet-cute or coma. Those are handled beautifully, but there’s a deeper healing (and awakening) at play.