You know what they call arranged marriage in Pakistan? "Marriage."

The Big Sick (2017)

7.7/10 on IMDb
98% on Rotten Tomatoes

Chloe's thoughts: Signed, sealed, and recommended by Chloe;
I'm buying the DVD;
Low-energy entertainment

Watch it if you: Want to watch a wholesome romantic comedy;
Want a romcom that isn't your typical cheesy B-flick;
Want something to laugh at but are okay with it being very heartfelt and endearing too;
Are a fan of Kumail Nanjiani
Based on the real story of when Kumail, a Pakistani living in America, begins a relationship with an American girl named Emily. Having very traditional Muslim parents, Kumail becomes concerned of how his family will react to their relationship. If that weren't enough, one day Emily is put into a medically-induced coma, and Kumail ends up meeting Emily's parents while visiting the hospital.

I recently became a fan of Kumail Nanjiani through watching Silicon Valley and his interviews on talk shows, so I really regretted not seeing this movie in cinemas when it came out. At the time, I had heard a few things about it but the movie didn't really interest me because I don't usually watch romcoms in the theatre. But after having heard the amazing reviews for this movie and becoming a fan of him, I've been waiting for this movie to come out on DVD so I could watch it. I ended up watching it on the plane (my flight was the day before this movie was released on DVD), and I'm so happy I watched it because this film did not disappoint!

I expected it to be a hilarious comedy, and while it was really funny, it was surprisingly very, very endearing as well. I actually cried a bit towards the end.

What I love about this is that the dialogue and the acting felt very organic, and the chemistry between Kumail Nanjiani and Zoe Kazan makes it hard to believe that Kumail is married to anyone else. They did a very good job in making a romcom very believable and realistic.

Ray Romano and Holly Hunter were also great as Emily's parents. I haven't seen Ray Romano do any dramatic acting, and while there is a hilarious scene he does in the hospital cafeteria, I was really pleasantly surprised at how well his acting chops were. Holly Hunter was fantastic in this and just listening to her voice is making me so excited for Incredibles 2!

But back to this movie.

What I loved about the acting was that even when it was dramatic, they didn't do anything over the top, it was all very subtle and seemed very natural, which you don't really get in typical romcoms.

The way the story is written is also really well done. You have Kumail's family who seem like antagonists but you also have Kumail understanding their cultures and not wanting to really villainise them. And then you have issues with Kumail's relationship with Emily and his relationship with Emily's parents, but none of it seems too dramatised. I think they managed to balance the drama and the reality really well in this.

So in the end, I think this film was really well done. I'm so happy for Kumail, he's a great comedian, and he managed to do an excellent job in both writing and starring in this movie. It's a romcom so it's romantic and funny, but it's not as cheesy as typical romcoms are, and it's actually very heartfelt and endearing to watch.

There is something about a tangle of strangers pressed together for days with nothing in common but the need to go from one place to another and never see each other again.

Murder on the Orient Express (2017)

6.8/10 on IMDb
58% on Rotten Tomatoes

Chloe's thoughts: It's alright

Watch it if you: Are a fan of the murder mystery genre;
Are a fan of Hercule Poirot novels
Hercule Poirot, probably the world's greatest detective, boards the Orient Express when a murder happens overnight. Stuck aboard a train trapped by an avalanche, Poirot must solve his most difficult case yet in this classic whodunnit where everyone is a suspect.

So this is like the thousandth remake of one of the greatest murder mysteries of all time, but despite that I was super excited for it, mainly because of the star-studded cast. Unfortunately it did not live up to my high expectations, but it was still entertaining since I was already a fan of the novel and of Agatha Christie. I wouldn't recommend seeing it in cinemas, though, and I'm not even sure I would recommend it to someone who wasn't a huge fan of the murder mystery genre.

Firstly, let's talk the main character Hercule Poirot: arrogant but genius detective. He is what makes or breaks any Poirot adaptation, and while I think Kenneth Branagh did a good job as Poirot, I think I just love David Suchet too much as Poirot that Branagh's performance seemed a bit off to me. I think he kind of went over the top at the start of the film on Poirot's quirkiness that it didn't seem genuine. Also, because I think they didn't make him look fat, they had to overcompensate with a ridiculous moustache, and I just could not take him seriously with that moustache. But his moustache protector, though, was awesome and we needed to see more of that.

Secondly, I think the story itself was lacking and felt all over the place. It felt like they spent a lot of time on certain dramatic elements of the movie, but these were essentially unnecessary to the plot, and for the parts that were very important to the plot, it felt rushed. When they went over important details, they went over them way too quickly, it was very hard to follow along.

Part of this is the huge cast. There are so many characters, and they are all played by famous people, but these people are a bit wasted on their characters with very little screen time. It would have been way easier if they just named them, like, "Oh that was why Penelope Cruz was doing such and such," since they hardly focused on the characters themselves, so naming characters like "MacQueen" made you have to think who that was, and by the time you thought about who it was, they were off naming some other character's motives and it was just hard to follow.

So it did feel really rushed and I'm not sure how people who haven't read the novel could actually follow along. I mean, it gets clearer later as they go and you sort of fill in the gaps yourself but they could have spent way more time on each character and getting us to know the characters really well so that the big reveal didn't feel so rushed and out of nowhere.

Of course, having done so many remakes it would have been a great miracle if this turned out to be the best one, but for some reason I was just so excited for this and really wanted it to be amazing. I feel like they don't do many classic murder mystery movies anymore which is really sad, and perhaps this doesn't help for the future of the whodunnit genre in movies.

So in the end, this movie had a great cast but they didn't realise their full potential with these actors, they were essentially just there to sell the movie. A lot of the all-star cast had very minor roles, and while I know you can't have every actor in an all-star cast shine through, I feel like they wasted a lot of opportunity to develop these characters. Daisy Ridley and Michelle Pfeiffer were pretty great, but I would have liked to see more of the other characters. They could definitely have spent more time developing characters, and perhaps that would have made the film not feel like a drag in the middle, and perhaps the ending would not have felt like it was so rushed. The movie looks very beautiful, and it is an enjoyable movie, but still a bit disappointing.