• Photo Courtesy Of Apatow Productions

What's it rated? R

What's it worth? Full Price

Where's it showing? Stadium 10, The Palm

Pick

Director Michael Showalter (Hello, My Name is Doris) directs this semi-autographical screenplay by Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani about a Pakistani stand-up comic named Kumail (Nanjiani) who falls for a white woman named Emily (Zoe Kazan) who heckles him during a performance. Their budding relationship is strained when Emily discovers Kumail has a stash of photos of Pakistani women his parents have been trying to set him up with in an arranged marriage, so she breaks things off. Later, she's taken to the hospital and put into an induced coma due to an infection, and Kumail realizes he made a mistake letting her go, but now it may be too late.

I don't know how accurate the story is, but in the closing credits, we get to see photos of Nanjiani's real life parents. It was a reminder of how lucky it is to have a close, supportive family. A couple of weeks ago, I saw and reviewed Maudie, another great love story. The beauty of film is there are so many ways to portray love, which is both the simplest and most complex thing humans express. When the screening ended at The Palm, the audience burst into applause, and this film is worthy. What a crowd pleaser! (120 min.)

—Glen Starkey