Directed By Michael Showalter

Starring – Jim Parsons, Ben Aldridge, Josh Pais

The Plot – The story of Michael Ausiello (Parsons) and Kit Cowan’s (Aldridge) relationship that takes a tragic turn when Cowan is diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Rated PG-13 for sexual content, drug use and thematic elements

Spoiler Alert | Official Trailer 1 – YouTube

POSITIVES

The kindest compliment that I can easily pay to “Spoiler Alert” is that it doubles down on everything advertised in the trailer, in a way that comforts during an age with so much miscommunication and even manipulation to its advertising. As shown in the marketing, the film is very much a slice of life narrative communicated between a gay couple, in which one of them is diagnosed with terminal cancer, and how both of them reflect on a relationship that was anything but conventional. Showalter’s direction, while free from experimental style or flare in the execution of his narrative, doesn’t use their orientation as a gimmick for the characters, instead illustrating their bond just as effortlessly as Showalter’s work in the 2016 smash hit “The Big Short”, where two people were made closer by the startling revelation that outlined all of life’s frailties. Because of such, the relationship between Michael and Kit feels very authentic and naturally evolving, initially beginning with a lack of chemistry between them that feels palpably evident in their awkward interactions and timid dialogue deposits, before aging gracefully in a manner that wonderfully elicits the warmth and charm of the actors in question. Parsons takes an immense step forward as Michael, the film’s narrator, exerting the dramatic heavy lifting that shows his range off terrifically during a couple of tensely enveloping sequences, all the while maintaining the neurotic familiarity of his time on Tv’s “The Big Bang Theory”. Aldridge is just as a compelling, but for entirely different reasons, exerting a free-spirited demeanor and affectionate impulses to Kit that makes him easy to fall in love with, especially in living through Parsons eyes, which allow us to see him and learn about him in the same way Michael did. Aside from these two, Sally Field was also a breath of fresh air and key utility player during the moments when the film’s entertainment value began to sag. Field supplants an insatiable charisma that inscribes some much-needed levity to scenes heavily enveloped in dramatic tension, almost perking me up inspirationally each time she invaded the movie’s framing.

NEGATIVES

There’s no easy way to say this, but “Spoiler Alert” is as bland and lifeless of a film as any drama that I’ve experienced in 2022. It’s a romantic comedy that fails at both, then undercuts dramatic remorse to its growing pile, and there are plenty of reasons for these miscues. For starters, the film feels constantly in a rush during the opening act because it’s conveying a 14-year story in 107 minutes of screen time. This naturally forces some of the character growing moments to undercut, leaving the internal identity of these characters plagued by ambiguity, and the kind that ultimately keep you from fully caring about their circumstantial plight, regardless of how life-defining it truly is. Aside from this, the strange framing device of Michael’s backstory playing out like a TV sitcom is one that abruptly undercuts moments of nuanced tension almost predictably after so many interruptions, frustrating the occasion with awful one-liners and time sharing that often took too much attention away from the unraveling romantic narrative where it needed it the most. Speaking of predictability, the film refuses to ever evade itself from such. Even if you’re like me and know nothing about Michael and Kit’s story heading into the film, it’s quite easy to peg out what will happen here, especially with the air of romantic genre movie familiarity pegging out so many of these melodramatic moments that could only lead it in one direction. It doesn’t help that the film immediately tells us from the opening scene where the story will take us, ridding it of any kind of tension or uncertainty that it could attain in the unraveling of its narrative, but it’s even worse when it reminds us of such as frequently with its meandering narration, leading to one of the more confusing executions to a true-life tragedy that I’ve ever seen. On top of this, the film feels shameless while taking advantage of the plight of its characters with some strange sequences that feel like they’re only there to manipulate their audience. Some examples are the disjointed structure, which not only leads to moments of abrupt tonal shift from one scene to the next, but also the overall editing of the movie, which shifts forward so frequently and unannounced that I often had whiplash in trying to coherently pick up the pieces with where exactly we were within story. Then there’s a one-minute scene involving Michael giving Kit a hand-job to inspire some euphoric relief to his ongoing suffering. Was this supposed to be sweet? If so, it only led to awkwardness and a complete invasion of privacy that feels detrimental to the humanity of the real-life figures in depiction. Last but not least, “Spoiler Alert” is one of those films that takes place over 14 years, yet none of the characters age a day in greying hair or facial make-up to communicate the passage of time. This makes it difficult to fully believe in the shifts of the timeline, but aside from that the psychology of the relationship, keeping the audience in the dark throughout some of the instances and conflicts that ultimately come to define their relationship.

OVERALL
“Spoiler Alert” is an exercise in mediocrity, made all the more taxing with its suspect execution that often gets the better of its sweetly sincere sentiment. Though the beneficial performances are aplenty in the trio of Parsons, Aldridge and Field, the questionable measures of creative storytelling keep it from being Showalter’s next big short, in turn spoiling it from the inside.

My Grade: 5/10 or D+