Starring Kumail Najiani, Zoe Kazan, Holly Hunter, Ray Romano, Adeel Akhtar and Anupam Kher. Written by Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani. Directed by Michael Showalter. Budget $5 million. Running time: 124 minutes. Certificate 15.
The 'hilarious' true story of how Kumail (Kumail Najiani) meet his future wife's parents, while his ex-girlfriend Emily lay in a medically induced coma as the hospital struggled to combat a kidney infection that was attacking her.
The film follows lapsed Pakistani Muslim and struggling 'comedian' Kumail, on the cusp of being discovered for the Montreal Comedy Festival, that's when he's not driving for Uber or putting up with his family's desperate attempts to marry him off in a series of 'hilarious' arranged marriage introductions. Kumail is as spineless as he is inept at comedy and utterly unable to confront his parents about his lack of faith, his desires to pursue a career in comedy or indeed his white girlfriend. Similarly he's unable to tell his girlfriend, Emily (Zoe Kazan) about his parents and their desire to marry him off. What follows is an overly long, slow drive of a movie, which while touching and well observed could easily done with being a good 30 minutes shorter, however since this is an Judd Apatow produced movie, the apparent 'comedy' genius behind just unfunny epics as Knocked Up, This is 40 and Wanderlust I suppose we should be grateful it isn't longer.
The relationship between Kumail and Emily is very touching and beautifully played as is the relationship between Kumail and Emily's parents played by Holly Hunter and Ray Romano. And it's this three way relationship that provides the heart of the film's emotional core.
The trouble is that Kumail has this really annoying little smirk on his face through out the entire movie as if he knows he's about to say something really hilarious, but the thing is, he doesn't. Ever. And when we do see some of his set, it's about as funny as well, your girlfriend being placed into a medically induced coma. Anyway the relationship between Kumail and Zoe that develops before the coma is lovely and very well observed.
Although the outcome is never in doubt, the use of real photos at the end of the film gives this a nice little emotional boost. This is a sweet natured but very VERY slow movie that really does try your patience but the destination makes the journey worth while. Just.
8/10
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