To begin with, there’s something about the title — it may seem both bizarre and mystifying. There’s nothing but comedy and romance in the film, though.

Kumail Nanjiani (Kumail Nanjiani) — the Dinesh in the HBO comedy series Silicon Valley — a Pakistani by birth but an American through upbringing is a part-time standup comedian and a part-time Uber driver in Chicago. After a one-night stand with Emily Gardner (Zoe Kazan), a university psychology student, he gets smitten by her.

It’s a familiar story of conservative Asian parents wanting their son to take up law or medicine as a profession and marry a girl of their choice — their older son Naveed (Adeel Akhtar) had got married to a Pakistani girl Fatima (Shenaz Treasurywala). And when Emily’s parents Terry (Ray Romano) and Beth (Holly Hunter) come down from North Carolina when their daughter’s been medically induced unto a coma as a result of a mysterious lung infection, the film takes on a subplot of its own.

Written by Nanjiani and his real-life wife Emily V. Gordon and based on true incidents in their lives — they eventually married — The Big Sick has some genuinely funny moments, especially when – at dinner time – girls ‘coincidentally’ drop by because ‘they were passing by’, courtesy his mother Sharmeen (Zenobia Shroff).

At first glance, one may well wonder why a life-and-death situation is present in a romcom. The pot pourri of elements seem designed to slot the movie into the genre of drama — one of the protagonists is in a coma, a boy and a girl from two different worlds (geographically and culturally). Dig deeper, and you discover a delightful film with humorous overtones — some subtle, some not so. The writers have done an astounding job, mirroring their lives and infusing the film with their personal anecdotes from their first year of courtship.

Despite such a storyline — and even with Indian actors (Anupam Kher as Azmat, Kumail’s father), it’s not quite a crossover film.

Ably directed by Showalter, the performances are commendable. While Anupam Kher as the forbidding dad emotes well, Shenaz Treasurywala unfortunately has just a few scenes and nothing of substance — she’s a fine performer, having studied Method Acting at the Strasberg Theatre Institute. But the two scene stealers in the film are the Oscar award-winning (The Piano) Holly Hunter and the superbly talented theatre veteran Zenobia Shroff, with her unaffected Asian accent. Every expression and utterance of the latter evokes intentional laughter.

My only regret — the latter part of the second half is overstretched by at least 15 minutes. Nevertheless, a film not to be missed!