You’re an Anglo-Saxon girl going out with a Pakistani guy. A few weeks of increasing closeness and commitment lead to love. Then you discover that his demanding, traditionalist mom has been trying to set him up with a series of Muslim women over dinners. He’s not into this at all — he’s into you — but he’s been secretly going along with the charade to placate mom. So yes, he’s been lying to you but he hasn’t been unfaithful, or not really. He should have copped to the dinners, of course, but he was too chicken, too cowed.
Question: If you were the white girl, would you maybe cut your dishonest Pakistani boyfriend a little slack? You could tell him to fuck off for weeks on end just to make him sweat, but if he kept apologizing and trying to gently win you back…maybe? I’m no Middle-Eastern scholar, but even I know that Pakistani parents are very strict when it comes to their children staying within the Muslim flock. If I were the white girl, I doubt if I’d be completely destroyed when the truth was revealed. Rather than go nuclear I would probably ease up and try to “understand”, I think.
Initial Wells reaction: “The Big Sick was the second best film I saw at Sundance (Call Me By Your Name was #1) — a dry, diverting romantic saga that feels very authentic in a low-key way. You never really know where it’s going, and that’s just how I like it. Droll, low-key humor for smarties & hipsters. And it really does come together emotionally during the last 25% or 30%. I loved the ISIS and 9/11 terrorist jokes. Kumail Nanjiani embroiders with a unique tone and sensibility, certainly within the realm of a modern American love story. He and Zoe Kazan hold things together for the first 40%, but it’s Ray Romano and Holly Hunter (as Kazan’s parents) who bring it home.”
