FILM REVIEW: "Spoiler Alert" is a romantic tragicomedy that will guarantee laughs and tears
Spoiler Alert: there’ll be some spoilers in this review of Spoiler Alert. By virtue of its title, any trailers or writeups, the first shot of the film, and the book it’s based on (Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies), Spoiler Alert doesn’t try to hide its final moments: a couple’s relationship ending with one of them dying of cancer.
While in many ways the typical rom-com; person meets person, they fall in love, they encounter some struggles, Spoiler Alert also bucks a lot of the genre trends. From Michael Ausiello (Jim Parsons) and Kit Cowan (Ben Aldridge) meeting for the first time at a bar, their relationship over 13 years, and their last moments together, the film doesn’t take a typical rom-com route with its depictions of relationships. Sure, sometimes it’s easy and sweet and full of love, but sometimes they’re lacklustre and difficult. For every part of your life that you had easy, your partner may have had them hard. You may have needs that they don’t, they may not need things that you want to give. Spoiler Alert balances the bittersweetness of romantic relationships and life wonderfully, and stays hopeful throughout.
Spoiler Alert doesn’t linger too long on the fact that it’s a romantic comedy about a gay couple, treating the characters and relationship at the center in the same way a heteronormative romantic tragedy-drama-comedy would. While the LGBTQIA+ stories of coming out and finding acceptance from the people around are mentioned, they aren’t the central focus, instead, Michael and Kit’s love and life together.
Michael Showalter’s direction focuses on what’s important; crucial moments in the couple’s life, as well as the small moments that glue those larger memories together. The film covers some similar ground to Showalter’s biggest movie The Big Sick, which dealt with health issues and acceptance of an interracial couple, and deals with its heavy subject material with grace and nuance. The movie’s funny and heartwarming moments are in no short order either.
The cast are all wonderful here. Parsons is given plenty of room in the script to see a very sweet and romantic side, and it’s great to see him flex his dramatic chops too in more emotional moments. Aldridge was a great casting find as his partner (I’d only seen him before in one of Fleabag’s greatest scenes) and gets to be the cheeky, sexy, ever-so-slightly-bad-boy, and carrying humour and serious moments with equal skill. Sally Field is also a delightful addition to the cast as Kit’s mother Marilyn, and is in her absolute motherly element in her moments with Kit and more importantly, with her acceptance of Michael.
Michael’s childhood obsessions were a particularly funny sub-theme, with some great moments as the viewer uncovers them. One of those, an obsession with television and sitcoms, leads to him viewing his younger self through a 60’s-style sitcom framing device. This was a little jarring throughout, especially when smashed together with some of the film’s most dramatic revelations. While useful to deal with his childhood exposition in an easy-to-digest way, there may have been a way to make them more naturally involved in what was going on in the main scenes.
At its core, Spoiler Alert is a movie about love of all kinds; infatuation, romantic love, familial love, love between friends, love and grief. While the film doesn’t do anything incredibly groundbreaking in the romantic comedy/drama sphere, it does what it does very well, with a great heart for all the characters and everyone involved around them. Make sure to bring some tissues.
