In 'The Big Sick,' Kumail's parents aren't the only matchmakers

WASHINGTON (AP) — In "The Big Sick," the protagonist's mother, Sharmeen (Zenobia Shroff), is a determined matchmaker. Every time her single son Kumail (Kumail Nanjiani) comes home for dinner, a single Pakistani woman just happens to "drop by." Mom is not successful in this quest, because Kumail already has a girlfriend: Emily (Zoe Kazan), a white woman he met after she heckled him during a stand-up performance.

Emily's parents — Terry (Ray Romano) and Beth (Holly Hunter) — are the real matchmakers in the film. Their matchmaking isn't intentional or overt, like Sharmeen's, but it is far more effective.

Beth also isn't thrilled with what she knows about Kumail: Before Emily landed in a coma, Kumail and Emily broke up after a big fight over the fact that his parents didn't know about Emily and were still trying to set him up with a Pakistani Muslim woman. And yet Kumail shows up at the hospital and puts in nearly as much time there as Emily's parents do. Beth knows how much Kumail hurt her daughter, and she's fiercely protective of her, asking Kumail what he's even doing at the hospital.

It soon becomes clear to Terry and Beth just how much Kumail cares about their daughter.

Though Emily and Kumail are an interracial couple — and Beth and Terry are both white — Kumail hears enough about their relationship to grasp that they're also two people from different backgrounds (a small-town Southerner and a New Yorker) who've built a happy life together. And while getting to know Terry and Beth, Kumail is also getting to know Emily better and appears to be feeling closer to her by proxy, even though she's unconscious throughout it all.

When Kumail tries to reconcile with Emily once she's awake and improving, she rebuffs him. However, after her parents tell her about how devoted he was during her sickness, she starts to come around.

By the end of the film, it becomes clear that both sets of parents have been matchmakers in their own way — in this case, it's the indirect approach that wins out.