Spoiler Alert Review
A truly heartbreaking, lovely film.
Michael (Jim Parsons) is a socially awkward TV-obsessed journalist, writing about shows for TV Guide. On a night out, he meets Kit (Ben Aldridge) - a much more outgoing personality, with a tonne of cool, hip friends, but also a man who has yet to tell his parents he is gay. The two start dating, and their loving relationship is explored. The years pass, and their relationship comes under strain. Then the defining moment occurs; Kit discovers he has cancer, and the pair have to stand strong together as they try to beat it.
Directed by Michael Showalter, Spoiler Alert spoils its ending in the first minute or two of its runtime, showing the ending spectacle in all its traumatizing quietude and clinical pain. But the fact that we know where this story is going, never makes it hurt less, or make it any less engaging.
Parsons and Aldridge are tremendous as the leading duo. Parsons, still playing reasonably to type but different enough to his most well-known role, is lovably affable, weird, quirky and kind. Aldridge, playing more of the ‘fuck boy’ vibe, while also coming across as deeply in love with Parsons’ character. They are both pitched so perfectly in their respective roles, that the entire film feels real and lived in.
They are ably supported in particular by Sally Field and Bill Irwin, playing Kit’s parents Marilyn and Bob. Both are so wonderfully charming, that you really feel as if the four are a real family by the end. Field and Parsons have a beautiful back and forth dialogue, founded on their character’s love of running.
For a film that is so clearly, from the off, about a cancer tragedy, it spends remarkably little time focussed on that element. Instead, Showalter is comfortable luxuriating in the relationship between these two remarkable characters. He doesn’t rush the meet, the first real date, the first sexual experience, the first time at each other’s apartments. Sure, he skips over plenty of details in relation to their respective careers, lives, etc. but all in service to the relationship between the two of them.
Perhaps most impressive is the restraint shown in the collection of trauma facing these two. Too often, films like this feel the need to pile on drama after drama. A lesser film wouldn’t have restrained itself to just a troubled relationship and a cancer scare. It would have had Kit’s parents against his relationship with Michael, career drama for each, and perhaps even a hate crime involved. It may even have couched the events in a historically remarkable event related to their sexuality.
But Spoiler Alert is too good for that. It recognises that the elements on display here are more than enough drama for any normal couple. And that’s what Michael and Kit are, above all else - a normal couple. They’re heartwarming in their love, absolutely hilarious when joking with each other (this movie will make you laugh much more than Bros), and ultimately completely heartbreaking when they drift apart from one another - first, across the city, and then across a much greater, more ethereal divide.
