Script Analysis: “The Big Sick” — Scene By Scene Breakdown

Here is my take on this exercise from a previous series of posts — How To Read A Screenplay:

After a first pass, it’s time to crack open the script for a deeper analysis and you can do that by creating a scene-by-scene breakdown. It is precisely what it sounds like: A list of all the scenes in the script accompanied by a brief description of the events that transpire.

For purposes of this exercise, I have a slightly different take on scene. Here I am looking not just for individual scenes per se, but a scene or set of scenes that comprise one event or a continuous piece of action. Admittedly this is subjective and there is no right or wrong, the point is simply to break down the script into a series of parts which you then can use dig into the script’s structure and themes.

The value of this exercise:

• We pare down the story to its most constituent parts: Scenes.
• By doing this, we consciously explore the structure of the narrative.
• A scene-by-scene breakdown creates a foundation for even deeper analysis of the story.

Today: The Big Sick (2017). You may download the script here.

Written by Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani.

IMDb plot summary: Pakistan-born comedian Kumail Nanjiani and grad student Emily Gardner fall in love but struggle as their cultures clash. When Emily contracts a mysterious illness, Kumail finds himself forced to face her feisty parents, his family’s expectations, and his true feelings.

The Big Sick
 Scene by Scene Breakdown
 by Andrew Lightfoot
 gointothestory.blcklst.com

Page 1 — Over black, Kumail is humoring a crowd about his life in Pakistan.

Page 1–5 — Kumail is backstage at a comedy club with fellow comedians Chris, Mary, and CJ. Mary finishes her set and informs them that Bob Dalavan is in the crowd. Kumail asks Dodd (the MC) for a ten-minute set, but is denied.

Kumail takes a peek at the crowd during CJ’s set and see Dalavan enjoying it.

Later on, it’s Kumail’s turn, he fails to amuse Dalavan but manages to get a “woo-hoo” from Emily.

Page 5–7 — All comedians are at the bar, CJ has impressed Dalavan to the point he got a gig at the Comedy Festival in Montreal. Kumail decides to confront Emily about her “woo-hoo” which soon leads to flirting. Back at the bar Kumail learns that Emily is in University for psychology and wants to become a therapist.

Page 7–12 — Kumail takes Emily back to his apartment, after avoiding any contact with him roommate Chris, they enter Kumail’s room, which is a mess. They start to watch Dawn of the Dead but soon end up having sex.

Afterwards, lying side by side, they share their high school experiences. Kumail was a dweeb who loved Hugh Grant and Emily was Beetlejuice with acne. This upsets her and she dresses herself and calls for an Uber … who is Kumail.

Page 12–13 — Kumail is driving Emily home, they decide they weren’t going to see each other again.

Page 14–18 — Brunch at Kumail’s parents place which seems to be a normal event. They talk about Kumail’s stand-up comedy, his mother not a big fan of it. This brunch soon turns out to be an arranged meeting for Kumail with a pretty Pakistani girl. No sparks fly between them.

Page 18–20 — Kumail is Ubering for Emily again, he takes back to his apartment where they watch an old movie that Kumail is excited about. Unfortunately, Emily doesn’t share his enthusiasm and soon becomes bored. They start making-out.

Page 20–22 — Outside Emily’s apartment the agree once again to stop seeing each other. Kumail promises to stop calling her only to call her as soon as she enters her building. This starts off a montage of Kumail’s family dinners with arranged meetings with girls and time spent with Emily.

Page 22–27 — They are at the Triple Door Bar. CJ and Mary inform Emily about Kumail’s one man show. Later that night Emily and her friend go watch it. Emily meets with Kumail backstage, she enjoyed the show.

Page 27–29 — Back at Kumails place, early morning hours, Emily wakes up and tries to sneak out. Kumail wakes up and asks what’s going on. Emily fibs and says she’s going out for a midnight coffee, but soon reveals she needs to go number 2 and with no matches or air fresheners and Chris being only a wall away she refuses to go in his place.

Page 29–32 — Kumail and Naveed are at the batting cages, Naveed is terrible at it. At the snack shack Naveed points out Kumail’s lack of culture and urges him to grow a beard like their mother has said. When Naveed is told of Emily he tells Kumail to dump her and get a Pakistani girl.

Page 32–34 — At a grad party Kumail and Emily are talking about wines, Emily lets slip of her being married before. They both confess that they feel completely overwhelmed by each other, though Emily thinks it’s weird for Kumail to say that.

Page 34–35 — The “meeting of the parents” is the topic of discussion as Kumail and Emily grocery shop. She ends up twisting her ankle, Kumail insistently offers to carry her.

Page 35–39 — At Kumail’s place Emily discovers his cigar box full of photos of Pakistani girls. This causes and argument and ending with Emily leaving Kumail and telling him not to call anymore.

Page 39 — Kumail at his parent’s home having dinner with yet another Pakistani girl present.

Page 39–40 — Backstage at the bar CJ encourages Kumail to pursue his career and go for the Montreal Comedy Festival or else he may end up like same doing same bit for years. Kumail tries to tell Sam about his repetitive material but chickens out once Same comes backstage.

Page 40–42 — Kumail is back at another family dinner date, though this one impresses even Kumail with a magic trick. Back at his apartment he stows away her picture like all the other girls.

Page 42–44 — Kumail is going well with his stand-up, Bob Dalavan is in the crowd and seems to enjoy it. After the show Bob notifies both Kumail and Mary that they made the finals to the festival. Kumail has seduced another woman, she asks him if he wants to go somewhere.

Page 44–45 -Kumail has taken the woman back to his place, he gets a call from Jessie who tells him that Emily is in the hospital. She asks him to go check on her.

Page 45–47 — Kumail meets up with Emily, who claims she’s fine. Unfortunately, the doctor bears some bad news. Emily needs to be put in a medically induced coma due to a massive lung infection. The doctor asks Kumail repeatedly if he is Emily’s husband as they need a family member to sign the papers, he does.

Emily awakens as they mover her to the OR., the nurse tells Kumail that he should call her family. Kumail takes Emily’s phone from her purse and uses Emily’s finger to unlock it.

Page 48–51 Kumail calls Emily’s parents, returns to Emily’s room, and falls asleep. He wakes up in the morning to Beth and Terry, Emily’s parents. Soon all three are moved to another room where multiple doctors explain what is going on. Afterwards, Kumai is told by Terry that they will handle things from here. Kumail leaves.

Page 51–52 — Backstage at the Triple Door Kumail expresses his uncertainty of whether he should be at the hospital with Emily and her chances of survival.

Page 52–56 — Kumail returns to the hospital where he sees Emily’s parents again. A cold Beth wants him to leave saying he didn’t want any commitments to her when she was awake so there’s no need to do it while she’s unconscious. Despite this Kumail stays and finds another seat as Beth throws her coat onto an open one beside her.

At the cafeteria, Kumail and Terry get to talk, awkward with an odd topic about 9/11, but a talk nonetheless. Soon both Terry and Beth are paged on the intercom. Terry invites Kumail to join them as they go to a doctor’s office. In there they find that the antibiotics aren’t working and surgery needs to be performed.

Page 56–61 — Kumail drives Emily’s parents to her apartment where they immediately start arguing about who gave her a book the find before Beth start researching. Kumail goes into Emily’s bedroom and hides a pipe and a big bad of weed in her closet.

Terry pops in moments later asking Kumail if he wants to play any games. Kumail refuses saying he has a gig to go to. Terry wants him and Beth to go but Kumail tells them it’s sold out.

Page 61–66 — Kumail’s family is with another Pakistani girl, they wait for Kumail who is a no-show. Instead Kumail is at the Triple Door watching as Chris is doing his gig. Chris asks audience members questions, he finds Emily’s parents and questions them. As soon as they inform him they are in Chicago cause their daughter is in a coma he turns to another audience member.

Back at the home Kumail’s father pretends to have a phone call with Kumail and after hanging up tells the Pakistani girl he will be there shortly. The girl knows he is lying and tells them she can speak Urdu. Azmat start singing to keep her from leaving, the girl reluctantly starts joining in.

Kumail is now up on stage. Part way through his gig a heckler yells out “ Go back to ISIS” this comment sets off Beth, who starts arguing with the heckler before charging him. Security catches her and drags her out, Terry apologizes for the disturbance before stopping on in front of the heckler to give him a piece of his own mind.

Page 66–67 — Kumail drives Beth and Terry back to Emily’s place, both guys are impressed with what Beth did. They decide to go get something to eat.

Page 67–71 — They get a quick bit to eat and soon are back at Emily’s apartment drinking wine. Terry falls asleep so Beth shows Kumail pictures of Emily as a Goth. This leads to Beth telling Kumail how her and Terry met, says her father hated him to the point he broke every dish in the house, but after a while they grew to accept him. Kumail tells her of the set-up marriages in his culture.

Page 71–72 — Kumail is back in his car, he checks his phone and sees a list of missed calls and voicemails from his mom. He then notices old voicemails from Emily, he listens to them one by one.

Page 72–73 — Terry and Beth receive good news from the doctor. The surgery went well and Emily is expected to be awake by the next morning.

Page 73–76 — Kumail is having dinner with his family. One of the Pakistani girls from before shows up along with her parents. This time Kumail admits that he cannot do this arranged marriage.

Page 76–80 — Back at the hospital Terry, Beth, and Kumail wait. After speaking with a doctor Terry delivers the bad news. Emily’s condition hasn’t improved and the infection has now moved to her kidneys. Terry and Beth get into a heated argument about moving Emily to Northwestern or not. Kumail leaves, goes to a gift shop, and returns with a giant stuffed Giraffe.

Page 80–81 — Kumail enters Emily’s room and places the Giraffe by her bed. He talks with the nurse and tells her Beth wants to her to Northwestern. The nurse informs him that not only is that dangerous for Emily, but the hospital will sign off on that too as it will relieve them from any liability.

Page 81–84 — Kumail returns to find Beth has left and Terry is there alone. He convinces Terry to come crash at his place. At Kumai’s place Terry tells him that he cheated on Beth once and has felt shitty ever since. Terry tries to give Kumail words of wisdom about love, but fails.

Page 84–87 — Kumail wakes up to see Terry has already left. His parents arrive to berate him about blowing off the Pakistani girl. Kumail erupts, confesses he hasn’t prayed in years, that the Muslim rules don’t make sense to him, and that he loves Emily. His parents disown him.

Page 87–88 — Kumail gets to the Hospital where he discovers that Terry as agreed with Beth to move Emily to Northwestern. Kumail is powerless to stop them.

Page 89–90 — Kumail has a meltdown at a drive-thru due to not being able to get four slices of cheese on his burger. Later on, he is in his car eating the burgers when Chris texts him. Kumail is due to be on stage in 20 minutes.

Page 90–92 — He gets to the Triple Bar, but moments before he gets on stage Terry calls. The contents of their talk isn’t known until Kumail gets on stage and tells the audience of his girlfriend Emily and of how she can’t be transferred due to the infection reaching her heart … she could die.

Page 92–93 — Kumail visits Emily again, he sits and talks to her, saying …, “If you have to go, you can go, but it would be really great if you stayed. I’m really sorry about what I did -”

Page 93–97 — Kumail wakes up in his car by a text from Terry telling him to get to Emily’s room. Kumail goes and sees that Emily is awake. He waits to go in, watching the scene inside the room. Finally, he enters. The doctor brings Emily’s parents out into the hall where they are told that it was Kumail mentioning Emily’s injured ankle that allowed them to figure out what was going on with her.

Back in the room Kumail and Emily talk. It’s a short chat which ends with Emily telling Kumail to leave, he does.

Page 97–98 — Beth talks with Kumail. Kumail says it’s strange to go through all this to never see each other again. Beth responds with “I hope not”.

Page 98–99 — At the Triple Bar Kumail talks with Mary and CJ, they are planning to move to New York in a week and want Kumail to join them.

Page 99–101 — A welcome home party for Emily at her apartment. Many people are there including Kumail. He and Emily have a talk in her bedroom. Kumail reveals the contents of what he calls his “bag of devotion”. In it are all the hospital visitor passes and ticket stubs that he’s collected along with a jar of the ashes of all the pictures of the Pakistani girls. Kumail has changed, but unfortunately so has Emily. she says she can’t remove Kumail from his family.

Page 101–102 — A short montage of Kumail’s family, Kumail, and Emily doing things all separately.

Page 102–103 — Kumail enter his family home unannounced to tell them he is not leaving this family and that he is moving to New York to pursue stand up.

Page 103–104 — Beth notifies Emily that it’s time for them to go, against her wishes.

Page 104–105 — Kumail is doing a gig at the Playground Stage.

Page 105–107 — Emily decides to go for a walk ending up at the theatre that Kumail was performing at. Kumail is seated inside talking with his brother Naveed, who quickly leaves as Kumail and Emily start to talk.

Page 107–108 — At Emily apartment Terry and Beth snuggle up on the pull-out sofa.

Page 108–109 — Emily and Kumail are sitting on a bed from Kumail’s show, talking. Kumail tells her he is leaving for New York, this affects them both. Kumial asks Emily if she is going to call an Uber, but Emily decides to walk instead.

Page 109–111 — Kumail is packing his things into the car, all three say goodbye to Chris. Kumail’s father walks up and hands Kumail a Tupperware container of his favorite food, cooked by his mother, and asks Kumail to text them when he is in New York.

Page 111–113 — A few weeks later and Kumail is doing a gig at the Union Hall. Mid performance he gets a very loud “woo” from the crowd. He looks at the crowd and spots Emily. Their following conversation is reminiscent of their first meeting. Emily tells him she is here from Chicago to see someone.

Writing Exercise: I encourage you to read the script, but short of that, if you’ve seen the movie, go through this scene-by-scene breakdown. What stands out to you about it from a structural standpoint?

To download a PDF of the breakdown for The Big Sick, go here.

Kudos to Andrew Lightfoot for doing this scene-by-scene breakdown.

For 100+ movie scripts broken down scene by scene, go here.