The Big Sick and If I Stay: Ex-Girlfriends in comas cause character growth for men on the verge of career success.
127 Hours with a Film Kid: This week we discuss nothing but Superhero content. From the first superhero movie Brooke is un-apologetically excited to watch, to running through everything you missed at DC FanDome, plus why adding the word “the” does not make a new title.
If you want to cry some more about Chadwick Bozeman, read Ryan Coogler's statement.
The Big Sick: Being trapped in a live studio audience by penguins, the worst possible make-out movies, and we spend this entire segment essentially just quoting this movie because it is too funny.
Read all of Kumail's Tweets from #WatchwiththeAcademy
If I Stay: We discuss the likelihood that musically inclined parents would love their musically inclined daughter, Lindsey refrains from calling Adam a maniac, but only just, and we discover that there is only one movie out there, and that movie is somehow Twilight.
Brooke: I don’t know, some fourth graders are filled with rage.
Lindsey: I was probably filled with rage as a fourth grader.
Brooke: You're full of rage to this day.
Lindsey: I am always filled with rage. It is why I still listen to emo music.
[Intro Music]
Brooke: You’re listening to Film Kids & Giant Squids.
Lindsey: And other things that think they're deep. I’m Lindsey.
Brooke: And I’m Brooke. And this week we’re talking about The Big Sick and If I Stay.
[127 Hours with a Film Kid Transition Music]
Brooke: Hey – this is Brooke in editing stepping in before this superhero themed 127 Hours to say the saddest and latest superhero news broke after we recorded this segment, which is of course the death of Chadwick Bozeman. In case you somehow haven’t heard, Chadwick died after a 4 year long battle with cancer, filming several movies in between chemo treatments. That takes a level of strength that I just can’t fathom. Our thoughts go out to his friends and family foremost, but also to the industry as a whole, because this is a great loss and one that will be felt. Okay. Back to the podcast. Kay. This week I’m coming at you with nothing but superhero content.
Lindsey: Um wait was one of them the Rob Pattinson Batman trailer drop?
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: Because all Twilight content all the time?
Brooke: Yeah it is but we’ll get to that. But yeah, I am a person that thinks I like superhero content until I actually go to watch superhero content and them I'm like hmm, not for me.
Lindsey: It depends on your superhero content.
Brooke: Yeah. The only superhero content I’ll unapologetically watch is both Antman and any of the spidermen. Just give me my insect boys.
Lindsey: Uh…One, no.
Brooke: Are spiders insects?
Lindsey: Two- yeah. No! They’re arachnids.
Brooke: Yeah I was like wait a minute.
Lindsey: Cause that’s why Venus Fly Traps are cannibals- or pshh.
Brooke: What?
Lindsey: That’s why Venus Fly Traps are carnivorous.
Brooke: They're vampires, Lindsey!
Lindsey: Because they also eat spiders. There would be a different word if they only ate insects.
Brooke: Ah.
Lindsey: Just give me my insect-adjacent boys.
Brooke: Give me my multiple leg boys.
Lindsey: Ah.
Brooke: Anyway, speaking of spidermen. First up is Sony and Marvel announced an untitled female-centric story, which obviously is gonna be Spiderwoman.
Lindsey: Oh woah.
Brooke: Because what else is it gonna be?
Lindsey: Yeah. So is it like Gwen Stacy in Into the Spiderverse? Like the Gwen Stacy that was also-
Brooke: It’s very unclear like they haven’t even confirmed its Spiderwoman.
Lindsey: Oh.
Brooke: Like there's no plot details it's just a female-centric story. So it is going to be directed by Olivia Wilde, which I am so stoked about.
Lindsey: Oh I didn’t know she was a director.
Brooke: Yeah so if you don’t know Olivia Wilde is an actor but she made her feature length directorial debut with Booksmart, which was one of my favorite movies of 2019.
Lindsey: Oh, okay okay okay okay. That was so good.
Brooke: It's so good. And I'm so excited to see what she can do with a superhero movie.
Lindsey: Mmmmm
Brooke: Katie Silberman who co-wrote Booksmart as well as writing Set It Up, which is one of my favorite rom coms of the last five years, she's writing the script.
Lindsey: Oh my god this is so exciting! You're gonna watch it and just cry and be like I hate superhero movies. I want to like this so badly.
Brooke: If theaters ever happen I will be at the midnight showing like I am ready to get up with the superhero nerds and just get so hype.
Lindsey: We’ll dress up. We’ll dress up as like legit spiders. We just missed the memo.
Brooke: Can we dress up as Venus Fly Traps?
Lindsey: Gross, yes.
Brooke: So next in the superhero discourse is DC FanDome, which obviously from that we got a bunch of new material, new trailers for some DC content both movies, tv shows, video games, comic books. It’s a lot so here are the highlights. So, first we got a new trailer for Wonder Woman 1984.
Lindsey: Oh I forgot they were making a new wonder woman.
Brooke: The current tentative release date is October. But you will notice with this trailer and you'll see it again in most trailers that are coming out now. Instead of having a release date they’ll just put “only in theaters.” And again this is both just saying that like in these times we can't really say when theaters are gonna be open and also theaters are opening at different rates in different places like in different countries.
Lindsey: Yeah that’s fair.
Brooke: But this is just- so it’s more instead of just saying like-
Lindsey: It’ll be in theaters, fucking guess, fools.
Brooke: It's more just saying like we're standing behind theaters, we won’t be releasing this to streaming first like a lot of movies have been doing in the pandemic. This is saying like we support theaters and we support the theater-going industry whenever that is.
Lindsey: Yeah.
Brooke: I don’t know things like a Chris Nolan movie, like, you want to watch that in theaters.
Lindsey: Yeah.
Brooke: You want to have that experience. That’s not something you want to watch on a laptop. And if that’s the film kid in me talking-
Lindsey: Then so be it.
Brooke: Okay so next we have The Batman.
Lindsey: Yes!
Brooke: So Matt Reeves, the director of The Batman, gave an interview and he also shared a trailer. And it looks good if you like DC-style dark, gritty superhero content. Keep in mind the film is only 30 percent shot at this point because obviously production had to shut down for COVID.
Lindsey: They released a trailer at only 30 percent done?
Brooke: Yeah. For that it looks pretty good. And I love Rob Pattinson and I love Zoë Kravitz so I will be watching it.
Lindsey: I just like that it's called “the” batman.
Brooke: So many of the DC things, like they have like “the” in front of it, like The Batman or The Suicide Squad. So next we have the Snyder cut.
Lindsey: Oh my god, there's more?
Brooke: There's so much. This is- the DC FanDome is a lot. So for those who don’t know Justice League was released in 2017. Zach Snyder directed it but had to step down in post-production due to the death of his daughter.
Lindsey: Aw.
Brooke: And Joss Whedon had to step in for editorial and handle all reshoots. Fans were ultimately disappointed though in this finished film and kind of have been begging for the movie that Zach Snyder wanted to present. And it's official. HBO Max is releasing the Snyder cut, which is going to be four one hour long parts.
Lindsey: Uh-
Brooke: That is so long.
Lindsey: They were like we can't show a four-hour movie. Were showing four one-hour movies.
Brooke: Yeah it's just- it’s a lot. So, last superhero content. The Suicide Squad, which not to be confused with the 2016 movie, Suicide Squad.
Lindsey: Uh-
Brooke: It's very confusing to me. It's not a direct sequel.
Lindsey: No.
Brooke: But they are- some characters who are in this movie were also in Suicide Squad being played by the same people but the movies aren’t-
Lindsey: But they're not the same?
Brooke: Exactly.
Lindsey: Fuck you DC. Also there has to be- there has to be a plot point. Name the movie after that.
Brooke: You add the “the” and you're done. So James Gunn who wrote and directed The Suicide Squard, he revealed the whole cast list, and it’s actually insane. It’s such a long and impressive cast list. Highlights include Idris Elba, Margot Robbie, Viola Davis, Sean Gunn, Pete Davidson, Nathan Fillion, John Cena, and Peter Capaldi.
Lindsey: John Cena?
Brooke: Yeah. I thought you were gonna pull Pete Davidson and be like him? What's he doing on a highlight list?
Lindsey: I mean also him.
Brooke: The lowlights for DC FanDome is that it comes just on the heels of mass layoffs at DC.
Lindsey: Aw.
Brooke: Apparently a third of the editorial staff lost their jobs.
Lindsey: Oh my god.
Brooke: And then apparently also a majority of the staff of the streaming service that they have, DC Universe, were fired as Warner Brothers shifts to focus entirely on HBO Max.
Lindsey: If any of you want to jump ship completely and enter politics, I can help help out marginally.
Brooke: I want to know the type of person who is gonna go from working at DC to working in politics. In DC.
Lindsey: It's just like where do you work, DC? It’s the same. You don’t have to change, like, your Twitter bio. We got villains.
Brooke: But do you have the Batman?
Lindsey: I can call myself the Batman at work.
Brooke: Alright.
Lindsey: Ya know like when you hop on calls, you're like it’s Lindsey from X; it’s the Batman.
Brooke: It's the Batman holding for Robin.
Lindsey: Okay actually I'm the Robin so never mind.
Brooke: I can be the Batman holding for the Robin. So that is what you need to know this week to talk to a film kid. Specifically if that film kid is also a superhero nerd.
Lindsey: Or if you wanna just talk to any superhero person, you can make- you can be the film kid in this superhero talk.
Brooke: Oh how the turn tables.
[Heart Monitor Transition Music]
Brooke: So my tweet for The Big Sick is a film kid is forced to admit he actually might be wrong, while his ex girlfriend remains unconscious with an unknown illness.
Lindsey: My tweet is in a story of love and sickness, a girl travels across the country to heckle one last time.
Brooke: So The Big Sick was written by Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon. It was directed by Michael Showalter and was nominated for an Oscar for best original screenplay. When quarantine started the academy started this series of Watch with the Academy where the creators, directors, filmmakers would live tweet rewatching their Oscar nominated films. So Kumail and Emily both live-tweeted. So randomly I'm gonna include some Kumail and Emily tweets that I felt were like especially interesting.
Lindsey: I love them so much.
Brooke: So much.
Lindsey: Because this was their, I guess like courtship and now they're like married. This- this movie took place like a while ago, but Kumail is still in it, so im gonna say they were maybe in like their late 20s, and Kumail is 42 now. So he would have been 39 in the movie.
Brooke: So the movie opens kind of like a typical comedy special where you hear his comedy then you get childhood photos overlayed. Then we get this montage of Kumail driving for Uber. And then we get more stand-up. We are introduced to the other comedians, so we get Aidy Bryant and Bo Burnham. He’s kind of playing this typical white guy comedian where he wants to struggle but just everything is handed to him. Fun fact about his material is that for the rehearsal like before the cameras were rolling he did completely different jokes but didn’t want the extras who were the audience to feel like they had to have forced laughter to things they have already laughed about, so he just did different material when the camera was rolling.
Lindsey: I love the idea of like the audience in it just like continually laughing at the same jokes through like a number of takes.
Brooke: I mean, when they do live laugh tracks for like The Big Bang Theory, they do multiple takes and you're like expected to laugh at the same parts.
Lindsey: I mean like first you're laughing to begin with at The Big Bang Theory.
Brooke: When my parents came to LA, my sister got us tickets to go sit in the audience for a show that only lasted a season. It was so bad. It was called The Great Indoors. We were there for so long. None of it was funny. So we like tried to leave and they were like no you guys can’t leave like you can’t hold us hostage we're leaving! There was a bit where live penguins were like in the studio for like one scene.
Lindsey: Aw.
Brooke: And they wouldn’t let us leave because the penguins were blocking the exit and I was like-
Lindsey: Awww!
Brooke: They're like you can't open the door because what if the penguins get out and I was like what if the penguins get out! It's LA! They’ll die!
Lindsey: Also why were the penguins- like why didn’t they go back to where they were supposed to be?
Brooke: I don’t know! So Bo’s character gets the Montreal comedy gig. Kumail goes on and Emily woos, so then afterwards Kumail approaches Emily and tells her off for heckling to which she says she wasn’t heckling she was being supportive. So he writes her name in Urdu and she doesn’t fall for it. She says “does that work for you?” And he says “yeah it sometimes does.”
Lindsey: I feel like doing something for people to be like “is that a move, does that work” Is also a way to start a conversation that was clearly successful.
Brooke: Yeah. But here's my first Kumail tweet. He says in reality that move of writing Emily's name of Urdu on a napkin worked. She loved it. For the movie we made Emily slightly more savvy. So it like completely worked on the real Emily but movie Emily was like is that a move? Anyway lets still have sex.
Lindsey: I equally love like just the idea that this is based on their life, and they wrote it, and they're like live-tweeting it.
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: I just want- I want to hear them talk about the initial conversation where they're like legally bound partner, let's write a movie about how we broke up and then you hung out with my parents until we dated while I was in a coma.
Brooke: Yeah. A lot of it is fictionalized but the heart of it is not. Okay, so they go back to Kumail’s apartment, and supporting your theory that all men do not have well furnished apartments there's just boxes in the corner.
Lindsey: And an air mattress on the floor!
Brooke: Okay so I spent a summer where I did sleep on an air mattress. By the end of the summer it was dead. It had a hole in it, and I was essentially just sleeping on a mattress pad on the floor.
Lindsey: And you were like a 19-year-old intern.
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: Not a 39-year-old film kid. I understand that he was not 39 in real life.
Brooke: Yeah, so he puts on the Night of the Living Dead as his hookup movie.
Lindsey: But also why do people put movies on when they want to make out. Just put on some music! Don’t put on a movie! If you put on a movie then I’m gonna watch the fucking movie.
Brooke: I don’t know. I can understand a movie. Cause like you don’t wanna- I don’t know you don’t make out right away. You want to like relax.
Lindsey: But he made out right away!
Brooke: Yeah I know. My first note is just like this is weirdest movie I've ever heard as a hookup movie. And then my next one is actually wait I’ve definitely had film kids put on weird fucking movies. I think the worst one was Stand By Me, have you seen that movie, Linds?
Lindsey: No.
Brooke: It’s one of my favorite movies, but there's a scene in it in which someone projectile vomits and it leads to a chain reaction of people projectile vomiting. There's vomit everywhere. And I don’t know if he just had never seen the movie or forgot about that scene, but I don’t know how he could think that movie- that the scene could be on and any kind of sexual mood would still be happening.
Lindsey: Listen I’m not judging people for what they get turned on by.
Brooke: Oh my god. No. So then they talk about what they were like in high school and Kumail has a photo at the ready so quickly.
Lindsey: Well he brought up the conversation so I think that is like his second move.
Brooke: So Emily goes to leave so she calls an Uber and Kumail picks up the ride. And if I had a one night stand I would not be like yeah sure drive me home.
Lindsey: Equally at that point I probably wouldn’t have woken up. I would have like- I don’t have the energy to leave anywhere. Ever. So like props to begin with but-
Brooke: Yeah, so while driving home Kumail explains his two-day rule. And they’ve been hanging out for two days cause it's after midnight, which is just blatantly wrong. I think I have had this conversation with so many people about what defines a new day cause it's not midnight. It's when you do something that signifies the new day, whether it's waking up or just changing your clothes if you did not sleep. But that is what defines the next day not midnight.
Lindsey: See I’m on Kumail’s side. Cause then like that warrants New Year’s Eve like to nothing. Or your birthday to like nothing. Like people text you at midnight.
Brooke: Yeah!
Lindsey: Cause that’s when the day starts.
Brooke: I don’t like the texts to be at midnight. Text me in the morning like a normal person! Okay I think my clarification is day versus date. The date changes at midnight; the day does not.
Lindsey: Okay. I a hundred percent thought his being like I can’t see people for two days in a row was a joke because Emily was like I don’t want to date you. And then both her and her mom bring it up the whole movie being like that was such a fucking red flag and I’m like I thought he was kidding because you said you don’t have time to date.
Brooke: Nope. He’s just a commitment-phobe. Kumail then goes to his family dinner. They talk about the cousin who married the white girl and therefore is dead to the family. He then goes and fake prays, and then they have ice cream and a prospective wife comes over and makes a weird X-Files pun. He takes her photo home and puts it in the box of girls much like a serial killer would. Emily comes over and Kumail proves to be such a film kid. He is so serious about his movie. And Emily says what I constantly think around film kids when they pull this shit – “I love it when men test me on my taste.”
Lindsey: And then takes a fucking dig at him which quote – “how many women have you shown a B movie to on a third date?”
Brooke: Another Kumail tweet coming in. This scene with me showing The Abominable Dr. Phibes to Emily is real. One of our first dates is me showing it to her. I didn’t find out til we were writing this movie that Emily knew I was unconsciously testing her quote un quote coolness. Men – don’t do this.
Lindsey: But also he watches her the entire movie!
Brooke: Yeah. I-
Lindsey: He watches her watching it!
Brooke: I hate when people watch for your reaction. Like no don’t. Don’t watch me watch- uh, everything about it I hate.
Lindsey: And like as someone that inevitably always dates film kids and I don’t know how, like this will continue to inevitably be my life.
Brooke: Yeah. So Kumail tells Emily that the plot will kick very soon, which is a foreshadow.
Lindsey: Ha.
Brooke: So he takes her home after they hook up and she says we can't do this and he says yes I agree. She goes through the door and he immediately calls her and says it's cold outside. And I get that this is very sweet and it's framed in the context of this being sweet. But also this is such a fuckboy move that this physically repulses me. But they start dating, and he continues going to his family dinners and meeting these prospective wives. So then he has his one man show that Emily attends. And here's the tweet from Emily – the audience, aka the extras, actually fell asleep during Kumail’s one man show.
Lindsey: Jesus Christ.
Brooke: After the show Emily goes to his green room. He asks for opinions. She says that she wishes it were more personal. Then at Kumail’s apartment, at like 3am Emily wakes up and needs to go to the diner. She says this is normal, girls go get coffee at 3am, have you never had a girlfriend before? Turns out she has to take a shit, but because he is a man and his bathroom is terrible she cannot do it there. And I get it. So then Kumail and his brother go to the batting cages and Kumail tells him he's dating a white girl and his brothers says that he needs to break up with her immediately.
Lindsey: Or else mom will fucking ghost you.
Brooke: Yeah. I just really love all the family dynamics. Like Kumail’s whole family is just so good.
Lindsey: Yeah.
Brooke: So Emily and Kumail go to a party and Emily reveals that she was once married. Then we get the grocery store scene where Emily is like oh my parents are coming tomorrow and Kumail is just like no I can’t, we have the two-day rule and Emily is just like sure okay and then there is a whole can I meet your parents, they're here, and he just like brushes her off and then Emily hurts her ankle.
Lindsey: I get Kumail. I don’t tell my parents people exist unless it's like necessary, because why would I go through the trouble of you having to meet them? So like.
Brooke: My parents have not met anyone ever.
Lindsey: If someone called my parents telling me I was in the hospital they’d be like A. who the fuck are you, B. if they like saw that they like signed something as my husband I think they genuinely would believe I just got married and didn’t tell them about it.
Brooke: Well Linds you genuinely would. I would believe it if it was like health insurance not like a real wedding but a necessary wedding, you wouldn’t tell anyone. So yeah at Kumail’s apartment Emily finds a box of women and Kumail admits that his mom doesn’t know anything about her. And they have that emotional fight where Kumail says aren’t you a therapist; aren’t you supposed to deal with this better?
Lindsey: Ugggghhhh.
Brooke: Kumail tweet time, he said this breakup scene was very intense to shoot. Zoe, who was Emily, was able to go there and back every time. I couldn’t get out of that mood. Between takes she’d be all normal and go let’s go get food and I’d be like I think I’m still mad at you. Kumail kind of ends it by saying I'm sorry I just can’t lose my family.
Lindsey: Also like the idea of like shooting a scene of you breaking up with your now wife with like a random person that kind of looks like her is very funny to me.
Brooke: With your wife watching on like yeah I remember this pain. So yeah Kumail meets his magic trick prospective wife and then does another standup set and makes it to the finals for the Montreal showcase. He then picks up a girl using the Urdu trick and after taking her home, his phone rings The X-Files theme. My whole thing is who leaves their phone volume on.
Lindsey: As they sleep, and who answers a random number at like 2am.
Brooke: I for sure would not. Emily’s in the hospital with a really bad flu and suddenly you remember what the name of the movie is. Kumail wanders around looking for Emily and he finds her and she’s upset that he’s there. Kumail tweet. In the scene where Kumail finds Emily in the hospital Zoe was actually hooked up to working medical devices. Whenever she saw I would see her heart rate actually jump. She's like, a biologically good actor. The doctor tells Kumail that there's a lung infection and they need to put her in a medically induced coma. And the doctor heavily leads Kumail to lie about being her husband so he can sign the form and Kumail does and signs the form to put her in a medically induced coma. Kumail tweet, the scene where the doctor asked me to sign the form to put her on a respirator is pretty much how it happened. This is one of the things that doctors who watch the movie say felt false. But it’s exactly how it happened in real life. Then he doesn’t know Emily’s passcode so he like uses her thumb, which is both very funny and very dark. Like I couldn’t imagine doing that. But he calls her mom and then he falls asleep next to Emily. He wakes up to Emily’s mom bring in like a blanket. And it's kind of rare that we’re introduced to main characters this late, but Terry and Beth are huge characters and we’re not introduced to them until act two. Her parents and Kumail are brought into the bereavement room and are told not to read anything into it. And you get the overlapping dialogue of all the doctors. Terry tries to send Kumail home. Kumail goes to like his comedy friends and is distracted. So he goes back the next day and Beth calls out Kumail and says you don’t have to worry about committing to anything. You didn’t want to commit when she was awake, so Kumail stays.
Lindsey: Which is fair like if some dude just broke up with my daughter, I probably too would be like why are you here, like unless her friend called you, you wouldn’t have known. Or cared.
Brooke: Yeah. They go to the cafeteria and Terry calls Kumail over to sit with him and they have the 9/11 conversation where Kumail makes the joke that they lost 19 of their best guys.
Lindsey: But equally just like “what's your stance.” Did they say anything about that? Was that like the actual real first conversation he's ever had with her dad?
Brooke: No I think it was fictional. They didn’t specifically say that it was but I didn’t grab Kumail’s tweet about it, but he was talking about how they made a point of whenever they had really bad news to preface it or immediately go after with something really funny cause they wanted to emphasize that this movie is a comedy not at sad movie, so they wanted to have that sort of whiplash like right before we get the news that the antibiotics aren’t working they wanted like a big joke. But I do have Emily’s tweet where she says director Michael Showalter and I wanted to not do the 9/11 joke but Kumail was insistent. I can fully admit that we were wrong. So yeah they have the meeting with the head doctor and the antibiotics aren’t working and they’re planning on doing surgery to remove the infection. So Kumail drives her parents to Emily’s where he then hides her drugs like any good person should do regardless of whether or not they’re your ex. Bringing parents over to someone's place and they haven’t had a chance to clean up cause they're in a coma, do it for them.
Lindsey: Equally though if I were the mom and their ex came by at the same time as me and was like I have to uh…tidy up their room i'd be incredibly suspicious.
Brooke: So Kumail tries to leave then and is like oh I have to I’m headlining a show tonight. And Terry wants to go, so Kumail then lies and is like oh it's sold out, but Terry then goes you’re the headliner, like you can get me in. And so Kumail misses his family dinner to do this quote on quote heading show. And Kumail’s roommate, Chris, calls out Emily’s parents for what is the worst bit of audience participation.
Lindsey: That’s why you don’t do audience participation.
Brooke: You just can't. Next time a comedian calls me I’m gonna be like my daughter is in a coma. Kumail does his set and has a heckler telling him he should go back to Isis and Beth fights him.
Lindsey: She also says if all people from Pakistan are in Isis then all frat boys who look like they came from the country club have shriveled up dicks, which is amazing.
Brooke: Yeah, so once they get back to Emily’s they get pizza. Drunken Terry tells his one joke and then immediately passes out. So then Beth and Kumail are talking and like stress eating. And I didn’t pull the exact tweet but Kumail did say they really did eat. They didn’t spit anything out. They actually ate everything.
Lindsey: I just like want to imagine a world though where Kumail just like has a bucket next to him where he just squirts whipped cream in his mouth and spits it into a bucket and just continuously does that.
Brooke: Honestly scenes where people eat, especially something where they're eating a lot of it like they are like shoving their face in, cause they have to do so many takes and the have to match how much they're eating each take cause for like continuity it needs to makes sense that they are eating the same at like the same pace otherwise it doesn’t track. And I’ve just heard so many people be like I’m eating ice cream and I had to eat bowl after bowl after bowl and even with the spit bucket it's just disgusting and you don’t want to do it after 20 minutes.
Lindsey: Uh, let people take small bites in 2021.
Brooke: I guess just stop writing characters that shove their faces with food.
Lindsey: Nah. That’s indicative of some people. They could just take small bites.
Brooke: But then they won’t be shoving their face they’ll be taking small bites. So Beth calls Kumail out for lying about headlining and he admits that he screwed up with Emily and Beth shows Kumail Emily's high school photo, which is based off of the real Emily's high school photos, like they re-created it.
Lindsey: Okay cause I was wondering if those were like the real ones or not.
Brooke: It was with Zoe, like the girl who played Emily, but it was inspired off of the original one. Emily tweeted out her goth photo versus Emily's to show that it exists. But when I was a senior in high school I worked for a wedding photographer. She also did family portraits and senior portraits. But I was supposed to help out with a senior shoot that then got pushed to a Friday and I couldn’t go cause I had a swim meet. The woman I was working for texted me in the middle of my swim meet just being like Brooke you would have lost your mind over this shoot and I was like what cause most of her clients were very like typical Texas southern aesthetic. And she was like Brooke she brought skulls and I was like what? She was like she brought animal skulls that were real, she brought human skulls that I hope were fake. She wanted to go to the cemetery, so we did. And I was like I would have lost my mind are you serious? And she was like it was the best like 2 hours of my life. I don’t know what happened but it was so fun and so weird, so that was similar to what Emily's photos were like. So Beth tells Kumail about her and Terry and how her family hated him until they just got over it. Later Kumail leaves Emily's and sees that he has 17 missed calls from his mom and instead of calling her back he just listens to the old voicemails from Emily. Then they get some good news after surgery. They're gonna wake Emily up or they're planning to wake her up. Kumail then goes to his family dinner and his mom tells him that they were just so worried that they thought he might have died in the train accident that was on the news and Kumail says but no one died and the mom says but did they look under the train. Kumail tweet - this exchange where the mom says did they look under the train was based on a real life conversation with my mom. My mom was actually on set that day and laughed so hard she ruined the take.
Lindsey: I wouldn’t be allowed on sets. It's not like I'm like ah I have so many opportunities to be on set and I’m choosing not to because I know myself. But I should not be allowed on set.
Brooke: You just need to go to like live audience tapings and then you can laugh as loud as you want.
Lindsey: I cannot afford to be trapped somewhere for 5 hours because the penguins could escape.
Brooke: So Kumail lies to his parents and says that he is studying for the LSAT. And then he takes home the magic trick prospective wife and Kumail says that she deserves better than him. Which again, is a fuckboy response. I hate it so much. I literally put I hate this I hate this I hate this. And then I was looking through the tweets and Emily's tweet is whooo boy, do I hate when men say you deserve better than me.
Lindsey: It’s okay, Kumail’s a reformed fuckboy in theory.
Brooke: But he's still a film kid; can't be reformed.
Lindsey: Has he graduated from film kid to film man?
Brooke: He is the one exception. So back at the hospital we get bad news. The infection continues to spread and they need to figure out what the disease is to have any hope. Beth wants to move Emily to another hospital to Northwestern and Beth and Terry fight. So Kumail then has the conversation with the nurse who tells him not the move Emily and he goes to the waiting room and then invites Terry back to his apartment. And he apparently has a second air mattress. Like. You pull out an air mattress for your guest while you are also sleeping on an air mattress. Sir.
Lindsey: You're not gonna pull out a real bed for your guest if you're on an air mattress.
Brooke: Just like why do you have two air mattresses instead of a mattress? Terry admits that he cheated on Beth and Terry says you're gonna know who you want to spend the rest of your life with when you cheat on her and you feel like shit. But my dude you should always feel like shit. Like you should never be like yeah its okay I cheated.
Lindsey: Ya know all those people I cheated on where I felt great afterwards. I knew they were not the one. Says Terry, not me.
Brooke: To clarify, Linds is not a serial cheater. The next morning Terry is gone and Kumail's parents come over and he admits to everything – to not praying to not wanting an arranged marriage to loving Emily, and his mom says you're not my son. And they call him selfish. Chris comes back in and tries to be helpful but isn’t.
Lindsey: I mean anyone who not only wants to eat a hot dog but goes out and gets a hot dog at 8:30am is probably not gonna be helpful.
Brooke: To be fair anyone who just wants to go out and get a hot dog.
Lindsey: Yeah.
Brooke: I mean I guess its Chicago so it’s a bigger thing but still. So Kumail goes to the hospital and they’ve decided that they're not gonna move her and then Kumail goes to the drive thru, which this scene is one of my favorite scenes. And he orders one burger with four slices of cheese and the person is like we can’t do that. “Who the fuck is we, man. It’s just me and you. It’s just you and me.” It’s just and then he loses his shit and like throws trash everywhere and then immediately apologizes and like picks up the trash.
Lindsey: That’s me.
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: I can relate.
Brooke: Having this meltdown and then being like alright that was excessive I'll pick that up. He then gets the text from Chris that he has his Montreal final round. And he goes on and he tries to do his routine but obviously he can’t because Emily might be dying.
Lindsey: And also like here and throughout the movie keeps saying because his girlfriend is in a coma and I'm like she's not your girlfriend dude. Like-
Brooke: Uh, yeah. She’s his wife. There’s some light awkward audience laughter at “my girlfriend is in a coma.” Which if I was in an audience and like this comedian just says “girlfriends in a coma” I would also be like “ha, wait what?”
Lindsey: I'm pretty sure I did laugh while watching.
Brooke: So Kumail tweet. This on-stage meltdown was by far the toughest scene to film. We didn’t tell the audience what to expect so their reaction here is completely real. It's based on a real set I had while Emily was sick. And the next tweet is we've seen movies where comics finally speak their truth on stage to massive success. Audience loves it. We wanted to play against that and have the audience feel awkward and hate it. Because that’s what happened when I did it in real life. Then he goes to Emily and says like if you have to go you can go but it would be great if you stayed, which is a mirror scene of If I Stay where the grandpa is like I want you to stay but I get it, you can go.
Lindsey: And Adam is like you better not fucking leave.
Brooke: Like how dare you even think about leaving. Kumail sleeps in his car of the parking lot of the hospital and he wakes up to a text from Terry telling him to come upstairs right away. And here my dude you have unlimited characters or you have somewhat unlimited characters you can be like its good news. In a text. Like the last Kumail knew was Emily was likely dying. And now it's like come right away.
Lindsey: Terry’s all about the drama.
Brooke: Just be like Emily's awake, come right away Like was that so hard? So Emily is awake, Kumail comes in. and Emily tells him off and tells him to go.
Lindsey: She says, quote, no dog, i'm not joking. You're not funny to me you just make me sad to look at. You make me sad inside my heart. And I want you to go. Which is so good, especially because it starts with no dog.
Brooke: Yeah. So Aidy and Bo’s characters stay to tell Kumail that they're gonna move to New York and tell him to come with. And then they give him shit for his Montreal showcase set. Which to be fair if I saw my friend have a mental breakdown like that, don’t know that I'd give them shit so immediately. Like I would at least wait a little bit. Like the year after I'd be like hey remember last year when you lost your shit?
Lindsey: It was in theory like the next day.
Brooke: Yeah! Emily has a welcome home party where all of her friends are. And my thing is her friend calls Kumail and is like you have to go because we have finals but like we never see any of them in the hospital and I feel like if my friend was in a coma-
Lindsey: Finals would theoretically be over.
Brooke: I would have gone at least once. To be like to visit.
Lindsey: She was like finals are the next day.
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: So it would have taken, what like a week?
Brooke: At most? Yeah, like she has shitty friends. None of them came but they all came for the party, okay. But Beth invites Kumail and Kumail shows up with his bag of devotion. And he-
Lindsey: Which i'd be really upset if I thought someone was giving me a gift and they were like here are the fun things that me and your parents did while you were in a coma. And here’s the fucking ashes of my past.
Brooke: Yeah if someone was like here’s these ashes of all the women I’d be like excuse me sir, what! So yeah, he asks Emily to take him back and Emily says no, that she can't go through it again. She also calls him out saying that she's glad that he's grown but she was asleep for it so obviously she's not there yet. Which, that is one of my favorite moments in this movie. Because any other response on Emily's part, like it wouldn’t felt disingenuous because she truly was just in a coma like she didn’t witness this growth, she doesn't know this new Kumail, and she's still who she was before the coma when they were not talking.
Lindsey: So like the opposite of If I Stay? Where neither of them arguably went through any time?
Brooke: And then we get a montage. Beth and Terry are helping Emily and Kumail's making changes to his one man show. Kumail shows up at family dinner and he's decided that he isn’t gonna be kicked out of the family because he gets a vote in that.
Lindsey: I like that he's like know what I get a vote..
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: And I vote no.
Brooke: So therefore, denied. Emily watches his terrible Montreal showcase online. Emily's parents decide that it's time to go. And Emily is gonna go walk to Kumail's show, and her dad goes if you feel a coma coming on, call us. Emily tweet Terry pitched the if you feel a coma coming on call us joke and I responded too soon, so that was then Emily's response. Back at the apartment Terry apparently sleeps with two pairs of socks on every night?
Lindsey: Gross.
Brooke: And I'm convinced he's a psycho.
Lindsey: I sleep with no pairs of socks on. That's disgusting.
Brooke: Yeah. What like its like youre a psycho if you sleep with a pair of socks on let alone two. Like who- whoever wears two pairs of socks if you're not going out into like snow. So Beth gets into bed and Terry goes, see, I should have brushed my teeth. Like yes Terry you should brush your teeth always like what? Who is this man? So Kumail, Bo, and Aidy pack up their car to go to New York and Kumail's parents come and won't get out of the car but like prepared his favorite food. And this is the scene that gets me like I don’t know why this scene like makes me so emotional but every time it gets me.
Lindsey: Very like Ladybird-esq as well.
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: Or I guess Ladybird is this-esq, because this came first.
Brooke: The dad being like goodbye forever, but text us when you get there.
Lindsey: They're so dramatic I love it. Like when they also like pan to the mom in the car too she like looks away.
Brooke: Yeah. They drive off and then were in New York and Kumail does stand up and Emily woo hoos and that’s the end.
Lindsey: Cute.
Brooke: It’s a good movie. See this one, I don’t know, like this one is film kid movie because-
Lindsey: And it's also just like a good movie. Like non-film kids would be obsessed with it.
Brooke: Yeah. They might look at this movie in film schools but more so from the script basis.
Lindsey: Yeah.
Brooke: -not from like a groundbreaking movie but just like to analyze like a good script. Like the script, the structure of this movie is so well done. They also, I didn’t pull all the tweets. If you have the chance, I wish you could like search someone's twitter feed cause it was actually really annoying to go back and try and find their tweets about this cause it was like months ago now, but they talk a lot about like the process of writing this movie. And I know they talked about they didn’t have the scene where Kumail takes Terry and Beth to a show. That wasn’t in the draft for a really long time like that was one of like the last things they added.
Lindsey: Huh.
Brooke: And it's like such a pivotal part of the movie. Yeah. I would recommend like going through and reading their tweets. It was a good time.
Lindsey: Yeah I want to go back and read their tweets.
[Heart Monitor Transition Music]
Lindsey: Okay, If I Stay. Tweets. My tweet is a ghost tells the story of how she dated a musician for a year and a half and it literally took her nearly dying for him to take about an hour of his life to write a song for her.
Brooke: Mine is a musical elitist can't face the fact that her entire family just died, so instead she relives her relationship with her rocker boyfriend while in a coma.
Lindsey: Okay so Rotten Tomatoes gives this film a rating of 36 percent with an average score based on 138 ratings of a 4.92 out of 10. And the sites critical consensus reads quote, although Chloë Grace Moretz gives it her all and the story has an intriguing supernatural twist to its melodramatic young adult fiction framework, If I Stay is ultimately more manipulative than moving.
Brooke: I agree.
Lindsey: I would also agree. I have never read the book but apparently the sequel is from Adam's perspective called Where She Went, which is just a funny title.
Brooke: I did read these books many many moons ago whenever they like first came out and yeah the second one is from Adam's perspective and it's like years later like he's like a rockstar or something insane.
Lindsey: Are they like together?
Brooke: No.
Lindsey: Like how does the first one end in the book? Or is it the same?
Brooke: I cant- It's been genuinely. I think it's about the same where it leaves it open ended. Like it ends with her waking up.
Lindsey: Okay. Gayle Forman, the author of the novel, was apparently one of the producers in the movie and Adam is based on her husband, which yikes. If I write something and portray my husband that way like I need to get a divorce and I'm making you tell me that I need a divorce. And the parents are based on two of her close friends that died in a car accident, which the parents in both of these movies were the shining points.
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: Intro, the main character Mia is born to a musically inclined family, but made to have a normal enough life for a main character to have a quote on quote relatable experience. She is a concert cello musician and her dad was in a rock or punk band, they kind of go back and forth and I'm like these are two very different things. But is now an English teacher and the mom I wrote that she’s a riot agent, and I have no idea what that means. And I think like something was like riot was in the name of like describing like her being a groupie or something.
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: And is now a travel agent but I'm just gonna go with riot agent.
Brooke: Yeah she was like a riot girl turned part-time travel agent.
Lindsey: I then equally tried searching If I Stay and mom job and then I just got a bunch of articles that were should I be a stay at home mom as my job and i was like I don’t think im gonna get closer.
Brooke: No.
Lindsey: So change scene, a basic skinny white dude with a guitar walks through the hall and is struck by Mia playing the cello. Which also the song that shes playing I feel like is the song that any character in like any teen movie or show is playing when they play the cello.
Brooke: Yes, not even a teen.
Lindsey: It's what Maya’s audition was in Degrassi.
Brooke: Any time they play a cello they play that song.
Lindsey: And I'm like is that the only one that has copyrights? There's gotta be other music. Like Bach is not the only person who wrote stuff for cello.
Brooke: That’s true that’s the song you gotta use.
Lindsey: But Adam watches her play cello and then he creepily stares at her through the hall, like watching her leave, and then her friend creepily takes a picture of him.
Brooke: Yeah and then is like your welcome. Like what?
Lindsey: Mia then admits that Adam has just been hanging around as she practices, which like we're starting off the movie on like such a creepy red flag, which is like indicative of like how shitty he is. I'm not gonna call him a maniac because I did that too many times with Edward.
Brooke: I have so many Twilight parallels.
Lindsey: He then asks her to go to a concert with him and she hesitates, which logical reasoning. This is a dude she has never met and whose only interaction has been him being hanging around as she's practicing cello. And like granted, the reasoning is that she does like him but is uncomfortable with herself as a person, but regardless, when he sees the hesitations he says quote, its okay. I see you. To reassure her.
Brooke: No-
Lindsey: But she eventually agrees to go with him.
Brooke: It's so much creepier than that. It's like you can't hide in that rehearsal room forever, it's too late I see you.
Lindsey: I forgot about that part.
Brooke: But also like that entire interaction is so wild. He approaches her and is like your Mia right? And she's like yeah, and he's like cause i've heard rumors.
Lindsey: What rumors?
Brooke: Rumors about what her name?
Lindsey: Next scene switches back to the present day which is a snow day and her parents suggest going to the farm, which driving during a snow day doesn’t seem like a good idea. Little did I know. When I first watched this I didn’t realize it was going to be- like I know that we're picking similar movies but the exact same plot of the point that they're just in comas for half the movie.
Brooke: See I love when I don’t run these choices past you, I just make executive decisions and you haven’t seen one of them. Cause it, it leads to you being like wait what?
Lindsey: But Mia wants to endlessly wait for the mail because she thinks that her Julliard acceptance is going to come. Which to be fair, it did come that day, so I do not blame her.
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: Her backstory is then described specifically and only through her being someone that plays the cello, which as a band kid in high school I did so many things that were related to flute that like yes I was pretty much defined as playing flute, but defined as playing cello since second grade. The father admits that unlike him, the probably fourth grade Mia at this time is playing music because she loves it, and not because she wants to get laid or is filled with rage. Like he was.
Brooke: I don’t know, some fourth graders are probably filled with rage.
Lindsey: I was probably filled with rage as a fourth grader.
Brooke: You're filled with rage to this day.
Lindsey: I am always filled with rage. It is why I still listen to emo music. It is apparently a plot point that the rocker parents have chosen to love their classical musician daughter, which I think is more Mia conflating her own personal fears that she is different from Adam and different from her parents that they won't love her, but give them a spec of credit.
Brooke: She is musically inclined. Her parents are musically inclined. Yes she likes classical and they like rock but its music? It's not like she's sitting there as a 10 year old being like I want to be an accountant. Like she wants to be a musician like?
Lindsey: Like it's still the same.
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: Like rel- like they can relate on i'm sure more levels than not.
Brooke: Exactly.
Lindsey: But as they are driving to the farm there is a car crash to which the car completely flips over, leaving Mia outside of her body looking to herself on the ground. Next scene is in the past again where Adam shows up for their date.
Brooke: How did Mia not think this was a date? They aren’t friends so you cant be like oh maybe we're just hanging out as friends, which definitely was a struggle in high school.
Lindsey: He specifically was like I have tickets to a concert of a thing that specifically you like.
Brooke: She's just like I don’t know, it’s a maybe date. No it’s a date Mia you idiot.
Lindsey: Adam knows Mia's dad's band, which I feel like the content of just most people's songs in general is more than any dude should know about someone's father before their first date.
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: And also makes Mia feel isolated. After the date Adam then asks her what her story is because Mia is different and isn’t a rocker like her parents, as if A. it's not that she still isn’t musically inclined and B. what child acts and has the same interests exactly as their parents? Like this is such a confusing theme.
Brooke: I know!
Lindsey: Through the whole movie in my opinion.
Brooke: It's so confusing!
Lindsey: Mia then calls him out for not having these tickets by chance like he pretended to, to which Adam responds yeah these were hella expensive. I asked you because I like watching you play, which I don’t like.
Brooke: It's so creepy.
Lindsey: A week later she goes to see his band and at the afterparty a girl asks what kind of bands Mia's into and she says classical and then the girl at the party responds I love classic rock, as if she's my dad.
Brooke: Mia's really rude to them. I'm sorry you're at like a rock show and she says what kind of bands to you like and she says classical like I too would think you meant classic rock. Like she didn’t ask what kind of genre do you like?
Lindsey: Yeah. And also like no one is judging you for your own superiority complex about yourself.
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: So after I guess this would be their second date, Mia asks if Adam has dated the front-woman to his band and I don’t even think that they ever had a discussion of whether they were dating per say it was mainly Adam being like I get off when you play cello and I demand we go on a date and Mia feeling weird about it but deciding to go.
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: Then literally as her parents are listening to Mia reject Adam by telling them that she has a curfew and cant stay out late because of her parents, her parents rat Mia out and then invite Adam to dinner on Sunday, which Adam is a little phased but is not stopped by it.
Brooke: From Adam's perspective, she was reluctant to go out on the initial date, she didn’t look like she was having a good time at his show, she was rude to his friends, and then lied to him about curfew, and then kind of brushed him off, and he's still like yeah I'm gonna show up to dinner.
Lindsey: I would not have continued this endeavor I’d be like know what it's not worth these very expensive symphony tickets.
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: Scene change, it’s present day at the hospital again. The doctor tells her that whether she lives or dies it’s up to her, which is not how it works, but it’s a recurring theme throughout this entire movie.
Brooke: Yep.
Lindsey: That if she wants to lie and she wants to resolve her trauma, it's just a matter of it she works hard enough at it.
Brooke: Yep.
Lindsey: Scene change again, Adam shows up to the pot luck that Mia’s mom invited him to, and Adam impresses her parents with his knowledge of punk rock and when Mia gets stung by a bee, Adam sucks out the stinger in front of her parents, to which everyone claps, and the mom’s friend goes that’s hot, which is mortifying.
Brooke: Okay I have two comments about that. One adults should not make comments about how attractive a 17 year old guy is. Like that’s creepy. But two also-
Lindsey: No.
Brooke: This is a direct Twilight reference. He sucked the venom out of her hand.
Lindsey: Undertone of this podcast, all the movies are actually the same.
Brooke: There's only one movie out there and it is Twilight.
Lindsey: Later that night Adam, he's not yet on her balcony, he is outside, but texts her saying I urgently need to tell you something, which like this is 2014, we can call people. Everyone in these movies can call. Every single person in every single movie apparently just wants to scale someone's balcony or climb into their room. But I digress.
Brooke: You can't kiss someone over text or call.
Lindsey: That’s fair but you can be like I'm outside, not just appear on someone's balcony, like in High School Musical. Like in this movie. At least Edward was like, nah imma go into your room of my own measure.
Brooke: Yeah, Edward basically did the same thing. Bella just didn’t have a balcony. If Bella had a balcony he would’ve been there.
Lindsey: I think he still would have been in her room. But, Adam then reveals that that is not how you remove bee stings. Like yes, if a boy scout leader taught everyone that the way to remove bee stings was sucking it out of them, that is a felony, that an adult scout leader is teaching them. Of course that’s not the way to remove bee stings. Adam says that he really enjoyed the pot luck because his parents aren’t present and he thinks that he will always be alone, and Mia says that he won't be alone because he has her, even thought this probably their third date. They start making out and then Mia says they want to take things slow, so they just make out slower.
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: Next scene there is a montage of them doing Portland things and Adam teaches her to skateboard because of course he skateboards and then there is an immediate scene change to her in surgery where her grandparents and best friend are there. It goes back, where Mia reveals to her best friend that she hates going to his shows because she feels like she doesn’t fit in with his friends, not because she dislikes his music. When he plays, she actually wants to lick his sweaty face as soon as he comes off stage.
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: For Halloween they dress up as each other's interests so Mia is punk and Adam is Beethoven.
Brooke: And Mia thinks that in order to dress you have to be a method actor?
Lindsey: Like what?
Brooke: She's just like I don’t know if I can pull off being punk. It's just a costume Mia, you don’t need to be it?
Lindsey: It's Halloween!
Brooke: Like you don’t need to act like anything, you can be your weird, shy self just in a wig.
Lindsey: Liz, who is the lead singer of Adam’s bands’ girlfriend brings Mia into the crowd, where she is offended when people bump into her while dancing at a concert. In the middle of the crowd. In the front. After the concert Adam tells her that he loves her, because who knows the timeline of this goddamn movie anymore.
Brooke: Well I assume it's been probably like a month.
Lindsey: Yeah.
Brooke: But there's someone who's dressed up as a skeleton that fake hits on Mia with some great puns. Like I don’t remember what the first thing he says is but he's like come on I can't even get your bone number. Like follow that man, I want his story.
Lindsey: I'm pretty sure he just straight up says do you want to bone. But they go to the boathouse shed to have sex and when Mia says shes a virgin Adam is like just think of it like music-
Brooke: Bleh.
Lindsey: And then they keep making musical references, which is horrible, but despite all of the terms and literally all the terms and all of the possibilities that exist within the musical realm they have seemingly very piano sex. Du-dum.
Brooke: Ah-ha.
Lindsey: That is my music knowledge for the day. In the next scene Mia's at the hospital and they find out that both of her parents have died but her brother is still alive, for now. Adam runs into the hospital, causing a scene by screaming for Mia and banging on the hospital walls.
Brooke: Which like I don’t know why he wasn’t allowed in.
Lindsey: Probably because he's a maniac. And he ran into the hospital screaming and pounding on walls. Next scene it’s mid spring and Adam graduated and started going on tour, but Mia's also doing cool things with her music. She does a solo performance at the college as one of the only high school students who has ever done so. And Adam wants to move in with Mia right after she graduates. Which, eh, but Mia says sounds like fun or something along those lines. That’s it. That’s what she says. Keep this in mind for later. Her family convinces her to look into going to Juilliard, which is across the country in New York. Mia does a bunch of preparing for Juilliard and insults her punk dad by saying this is Juilliard, not just throwing sounds at the wall, which her dad takes like a champ even though that’s an extremely upsetting thing to say about probably 20 years of his life.
Brooke: And also just about like music in general.
Lindsey: Yeah like just because something is not classical does not mean-
Brooke: Everything about it.
Lindsey: But her brother tries to comfort her telling her it was amazing. And despite calling her dad's music trash, everyone moves on. In the next scene Adam's band is going to what I think is Austin City Limits.
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: They just say city limits.
Brooke: I think it's supposed to be implied that it’s Austin City Limits. But like-
Lindsey: Which is amazing.
Brooke: Yeah. Uh- and also it's such a long drive from Portland he was like yeah I'll be gone for a couple days. Yeah like you'll be gone just driving for a couple days like what are you talking about.
Lindsey: And then the school bell rings and he says ah, I never thought I'd hear that again, as if he isn’t literally at school dropping off his high school girlfriend, from somewhere that he just graduated from.
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: He leaves to go to Austin City Limits. He doesn’t talk to Mia for like presumably a few days, a week, I'm not sure. And then does the whole asshole thing where he calls someone in a place where he clearly can't talk and it's too loud and he isn’t paying attention and then immediately hangs up. But he says that a record company wants to sign his band. Meanwhile Mia gets a letter from Juilliard asking her to audition. And Mia goes to talk to Adam in the boathouse, the same boathouse where they had sex, which is a weird place to practice I will say.
Brooke: When they had sex there he was specifically like me and the band are gonna like be here. Like this is our place.
Lindsey: Like there are so many places you could have picked. Also, whose boathouse is this? Where did the boats go? Adam ignores Mia when she comes in to drop off food, but then ends the entire practice when he sees her leave. Which if I was his bandmate, I would be eternally angry at Adam just leaving in the middle of practice to talk to Mia.
Brooke: He is such a bad- like he almost becomes that Rockstar mentality. We didn’t talk about it but the Halloween show when he like shows up after Mia and walks in and almost immediately goes on stage. So he didn’t help setup. He definitely wasn’t there for sound check. Like what the fuck bro?
Lindsey: No! But he- he leaves the practice to go talk to her and seems really apathetic when she tells him that she got an audition. Adam is back because his band is playing a homecoming show the next day. And now that Adam's band can practice full time because they're out of high school, Mia is like somehow they're better. Somehow. When she goes to his show, Adam just tells her that he is quote, glad that she can make it, and then ignores her the rest of the night. As they are packing up and she's reading outside he says you should have just stayed home. But they were packing up! She was at the show, which she paid attention to.
Brooke: Yeah and then left once he signed a girl's boobs and ignored her.
Lindsey: Yeah!
Brooke: And then like, it's not like she stormed out and left she literally just was like okay I don’t need to see this. I'll go sit by the van and read a book until you're done. Like what did you want her to do? Stand around and be like oh my god I'm so glad my boyfriend has all these girls hanging off of him right now?
Lindsey: Like he had a lot of people that wanted autographs. She didn’t need to be there. She has homework. While Adam literally does not even tell Mia he is leaving for 10 days and missing her birthday dinner. He justifies it by saying that because Mia's auditioning for Juilliard she is bailing on their plan of living together. Their fully concrete plan of living together. When Mia says they can Skype, Adam says, have you ever been in a long distance relationship it's like dating a ghost. Which, have you Adam? You started dating Mia as a senior in high school, what long distance relationship were you in sophomore or junior year? Or like did you date someone in middle school who then went to a different high school because that doesn’t fucking count.
Brooke: And also like the past year essentially you’ve been on tour for so much of it. It’s a , what that is long distance?
Lindsey: Adam's like it’s only long distance if you're away, not if I’m away.
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: So Adam comes back from tour one afternoon and shows up in her bedroom where he tapes the ceiling with what the ceiling for her Juilliard audition will look like. Mia rightfully so calls him out for ignoring her and only coming back when it's convenient for him. And Adam's like but my parents left me, so Mia's like bitch I didn’t leave you though, so stop taking it out on me. And when I reference maybe moving earlier you freaked out so obviously I wasn’t going to tell you something that wasn’t even an option for me to consider yet. Adam then buys her a birthday gift which is a cello and a guitar on a bracelet and he says do you get it? Like no.
Brooke: What is there to get, Adam?
Lindsey: Please explain. Adam explains, not related to the bracelet, the moment that he knew he was good at playing music was when he went into a liquor store to buy a red bull and saw his dad drunk to the point that he didn’t even recognize who Adam was and nothing else mattered that night, and life is pointless, except for Mia, which is an alarming character trait. Meanwhile Mia responds by saying that she likes to picture herself inside of her cello.
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: Next scene Mia's at her audition and her grandfather says that Mia is fearless and played her guts out and she's really good. And he's telling her this now because he never told his son that he liked his music, which he was in a band for probably like 10 plus years. Like that’s shitty! Mia comes back and tells Adam about her audition to which he angrily accuses why didn’t you call me right after your audition.
Brooke: Yeah, what he fuck.
Lindsey: And then says but I don’t wanna fight. Like you clearly wanna fight. Mia then asks Adam why he's never written a song about her, which is fair because at this point they’ve been dating for like 6, 7, 8, months?
Brooke: They’ve been dating over a year at this point.
Lindsey: Even more so, fair question to ask. And he says I don’t write songs about things that make me happy. Which is, also I feel like a red flag, but whatever. The people who you love can make you mad and Adam has been mad well over half this movie. You'd think Mia would get a song in maybe that sense. He then asks her if she gets into Juilliard what she's going to do, and then says I don’t want to be that asshole who stopped you from going to Juilliard. As if that hasn’t been what he's been trying to do the whole movie.
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: Then despite Adam being on the road all the time he's like I'm here, meaning in Portland, which isn’t true.
Brooke: Yeah you're-
Lindsey: You can go to New York. His job is half the time on the road.
Brooke: I know!
Lindsey: So it doesn’t matter where he is.
Brooke: Like no matter where you live it's gonna be a long distance relationship.
Lindsey: Back at the hospital Adam tells Mia's friend that he's here instead of at his big show but it doesn’t matter anymore. And then he talks about loving her from the first day he saw her playing. But he is mad at himself for being an asshole for quote, something he did to her, which could literally be anything at this point.
Brooke: Yup.
Lindsey: And that he can't lose her again. In a new segment that I'm calling, that I started in twilight, that I'm calling is this movie cop propaganda, the answer for this movie is no. The only scene with a cop is Mia's friend yelling at him.
Brooke: That’s not a real cop.
Lindsey: That’s fair, is it a hospital cop or is it a real cop employed by the hospital?
Brooke: I think it's like a security guard.
Lindsey: Oh well, I counted him as a cop.
Brooke: You can count it as a cop.
Lindsey: Whose purpose was presented as an obstacle to Adam getting into Mia’s room. And why the hospital is employing cops to guard the doors is beyond me.
Brooke: Yeah!
Lindsey: But apparently he's not a cop, just employed to guard the doors.
Brooke: And Kim, the best friend, provides the most extreme distraction. Like, I just want to know where she wanted to go with that. She's like someone’s upstairs in the bathroom, they're bleeding there's so much blood it's everywhere. Like that's so much more than you needed.
Lindsey: What was the scenario?
Brooke: Like what would have happened if the officer did follow you and you get to the bathroom like oh, guess she's gone and so is all the blood.
Lindsey: Cause at first he was like okay whatever and then she was like no you have to leave and he was like okay!
Brooke: Yeah like he's not a doctor. Like he would have just called for the hundreds of doctors that work in a hospital.
Lindsey: He would have called literally anyone else there.
Brooke: Yeah like me and a janitor the least helpful but even the janitor could clean up the blood.
Lindsey: Fair. Adam then breaks in and tries to touch Mia's lifeless body. They reveal that her brother also died in the accident, and then theres a montage of all the things that they’ll enver get to do like that fucking superbowl commercial maybe two to three years ago.
Brooke: Oh yeah I forgot about that. That was really fucked up.
Lindsey: Yeah, and it was like spitting image of this scene I would say. But in this context, it makes sense. In the middle of the Superbowl, it’s fucked up. It goes back to the past again when Mia and Adam are at a New Year’s Eve party and Adam says promise me and demands an answer before knowing what the promise is so Mia says yes, and Adam says promise me that we'll spend next new years together. Like not just together as in you'll visit me, like we'll be living together. And Mia's like I cant promise you that. So then Adam knocks all the cups off the ledge of the balcony angrily and then the next morning Mia tells her mom that she and Adam broke up. Back to present day in the hospital Mia's grandfather is sitting with her and tells Mia that his dad quit his band to quote on quote make sacrifices for the kids. And the whole movie Mia thought that the dad quit the band for Teddy, but he really quit so he could sell his drum set so that Mia could buy a cello because he say so much in her which Mia just did not believe the entire movie that her parents would be supportive of classical music which is again insane. Like they're here supporting you.
Brooke: Yeah. Like they’ve always been supportive.
Lindsey: He tells her in the same scene as The Big Sick that while he’d love if she lived, its also okay if she doesn’t want to, because her entire family just fucking died.
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: And he’ll understand, which is fair.
Brooke: That is a very, like I, woo, that’s a tough one. Also like how long is she in that coma?
Lindsey: I have no idea.
Brooke: Because it feels like it's like several days, but at the same time, that one nurse is on shift.
Lindsey: And at the same time it might have just been overnight.
Brooke: That one nurse, like that nurse is on shift the entire time. She's like I'm not going home until you go home like that’s crazy!
Lindsey: I'm not going home for 14 straight days.
Brooke: I'm just gonna keep whispering.
Lindsey: Until your ass decides to get better. They're at the hospital, seemingly a lot of people who aren’t Adam are allowed to visit her.
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: Including Liz and her girlfriend. Mia's friend then shows Mia a picture of her and Adam which she says is her favorite picture. But I never remember her friend being at any party with her and Adam.
Brooke: Well it's like in the, they haven’t shown that. The picture is from her favorite memory.
Lindsey: Oh it was from that night.
Brooke: But my whole thing is she's in a coma, that girl can definitely not see that photo. She can hear sounds-
Lindsey: Mia's ghost is doing it for her.
Brooke: But like here Mia look at this photo.
Lindsey: Open your fucking eyes. The only reason you're not doing it is because you are choosing not to. Mia then references her favorite day, which they are at a potluck with her and Adam in not these exact words she describes as right before he starts becoming an asshole.
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: Or right before he comes full asshole, as he was always a little bit of an asshole. It was a barbecue turned bonfire turned Mia playing her cello with Adam playing guitar and Adam sings a fucking Smashing Pumpkins song.
Brooke: But my thing is she's like I always thought that the cello was a solo instrument. Its-
Lindsey: Like yeah bitch that’s your personality.
Brooke: But also it's famously also part of the orchestra. Like you were just a soloist.
Lindsey: She never joined the school orchestra. But Mia finally I guess like allowed herself to play her cello in an instance that wasn’t just classical music and finally felt like she belonged in that scene, that scene being the one with Adam and his band and her parents and their band friends and then the next line is her saying but that cant exist again because everyone just fucking died. Which like I forget that that is also an extremely traumatic thing that parallels this movie.
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: Until it is like abruptly brought up. And every time it is brought up it is abrupt Mia's then tempted to walk into the forest outside the hospital deciding whether or not she wants to live. But then stops because she can hear cello music on the loudspeaker which is actually just Adam who is now supposedly allowed in her room.
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: Playing music for her on her headphones.
Brooke: The security guard went on break.
Lindsey: He was looking for the person that was bleeding out in the bathroom.
Brooke: The memo to let literally anyone else but Adam in didn’t make it to the next shift.
Lindsey: Adam then tells her body that while hes not dumb enough to think that he can fix the fact that her whole family just died, that hes going to try. Adam says that he broke into her house and brought her mail and, which, her Juilliard acceptance letter was in. Now he is suddenly willing to move to New York with her because she is his quote, home, which was not the case the entire movie, and in this scenario nothing changed other than that she was in a coma. Like spent no time developing growth and falling in love with her parents though he was already in love with her parents.
Brooke: Well her parents were dead. He couldn’t bond.
Lindsey: That’s a fair point. He then plays a song that he wrote for her, which assuming that the accident happened that day, he wrote that song in a couple of hours. Most of the hours he also spent were trying to fight the security guard. So they dated a year and a half and she got maybe half of a song written within a couple of hours. Only because she almost died, not because he was in love with her. Regardless, Mia wakes up and Adam is there, and then it ends despite nothing of either of them changing and I don’t know how the book ends, you said apparently like this, but if it ended with him moving to New York with her I would have been upset.
Brooke: Also when he like brings the Juilliard letter he hasn’t opened it. Like it could be a rejection letter. Like imagine him being like I broke into your house, I got your mail, im gonna open this. And then like oof. It’s a rejection.
Lindsey: Oof buddy. You didn’t make it.
Brooke: And then like yeah maybe don’t wake up Mia. Honestly.
Lindsey: That is If I Stay.
[Heart Monitor Transition Music]
Brooke: Kay. Which do you like more – The Big Sick or If I Stay?
Lindsey: The Big Sick is one of like my favorite rom coms. I love Kumail and Emily just like as people so much I also love like shitty YA books turned movies. But it is very very strongly The Big Sick. It was so well written, it was so funny. It was just like-
Brooke: Yeah I don’t know. The Big Sick gets to my heart in a way that most movies don’t.
Lindsey: I understand what like If I Stay was doing by like telling the entire story through like flashbacks, so having it be like her by herself like at the hospital along with like them meeting, but progressing through the story through like Kumail, and having it be like yeah Emily wasn’t there for like probably like two thirds of it and just like the first 30 minutes of this move to the last is just so like jarring. I feel like told in the way of which it was.
Brooke: Yeah. Imagine though if Emily was having an out of body experience the whole time and just had to watch like her dad.
Lindsey: The Big Sick Two is Emily's perspective sitting here watching this.
Brooke: Her dad and her ex boyfriend bonding over 9/11.
Lindsey: Is she in the cafeteria with them?
Brooke: Yeah I mean if like Mia can follow them around in the hospital im not sure why Emily can’t.
Lindsey: That’s fair. The Big Sick Two, Emily in the City is her just following them around. She watches- she watches the day lay on Kumail's floor.
Brooke: She watches him pull out a second air mattress.
Lindsey: Oh my god. She's like this is exactly why we are not dating. How dare my parents try and get me to date you.
Brooke: The Big Sick is just so good. I don’t know it's one of those movies where as someone who studied screenwriting and like wants to be a writer is one of the movies that like I watched and was like no I need to read this script like I want to see this on the page.
Lindsey: Yeah.
Brooke: And the script is so well done.
Lindsey: Yeah for you, not because I relate because- I never feel the need to like read an actual script though I'm sure it would be interesting. I don’t know how many movies are like written by like the actual two people of which it happened to them.
Brooke: Yeah.
Lindsey: Even if they weren’t both like amazing writers, I feel like even just the concept of them being like this is our life story and we’re writing it together as a movie of how we broke up and then something tragic happened.
Brooke: Yeah. And especially because how like the movie came to be was that Kumail was just talking to Judd Apatow who produced it and had like several ideas and I think just the story of him and Emily's relationship just came up during this conversation and I think Judd as far as I'm remembering was like no that’s a really good story, tell that story.
Lindsey: Aw. He was just gushing about his wife.
Brooke: As one does. Like if I was married to Emily V. Gordon I would be gushing about her constantly.
Lindsey: That’s fair. That’s fair. I do gush about her constantly. And we ain’t even- we ain't even friends.
Brooke: Well that does it for the episode thanks for listening.
Lindsey: Give us some shares. Give us some reviews.
Brooke: Share this episode with your friend that’s in a coma.
Lindsey: Psh. Oh. Share this with-
Brooke: Share this with your ex girlfriend's parents. And follow us on social media. We are at film squids pod on everything.
Lindsey: Or at our website film kids giant squids dot com.
Brooke: Film kids giant squids was produced and hosted by Brooke Hoppe and Lindsey Buttel. Theme music by the band Poly Action. Transition music is Heart Rate. by Taranoshi. Editing by Brooke Hoppe. Until next time kids.