One of the most indescribable yet specific human emotions is anticipatory nostalgia – that feeling of dread that occurs when we might be enjoying time with loved ones, or indulging in a fleeting moment of relaxation on a Sunday, only to remember that Monday is always looming behind. This is what much of Michael Showalter’s Spoiler Alert is able to convey; this feeling of predetermined sadness within those moments we share with our loved ones. Based on Michael Ausiello’s memoir, Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies, the film serves as a collage of memories of Ausiello’s time with his late husband Kit who is diagnosed with cancer during a particularly rough patch in their relationship.
Michael (Jim Parsons), being a TV journalist and the narrator of this story, finds ways to cope with his boyfriend Kit’s (Ben Aldridge) sickness in ways that manifest in the form of seeing his life through the lens of sitcom television – laugh track and all. These glimpses into Michael’s daytime television-themed mind add a layer of meta-consciousness to the film that reveal how Michael sees himself in relation to the other “characters” in his life, which is most often the butt of the joke. These transitions into the sitcom world are often placed during the most emotionally heavy moments, which feel like Michael using his love of television to soften the blow of him and his partner’s devastating reality.
Because of the manner in which this love story is told by its narrator, Spoiler Alert feels like an extension of Michael’s brain, which is incredibly sentimental in a way that is childlike at times. Michael, who is deeply in touch with his inner child, keeps family holiday traditions very much a part of his adult life and allows them to become part of a set of new traditions with Kit. We get many low-angled shots of trees as visual representation of Michael’s self-preserved traditions and what it means to share these intimacies with someone else. With a narrator who is so in tune with his past and what he envisions in his future, the film is infused with a nostalgia that expresses both acceptance and grief.
Spoiler Alert is as playful as it is heart wrenching. Though Michael tries to distance himself from his life off-screen, Kit is simultaneously processing his own mortality during his very real battle with cancer. Both Aldridge and Parsons deliver incredibly vulnerable portrayals of the real Michael and Kit, with the former providing the quirky persona of the film’s narrator. The most grounding moments are curated by the convergence of Michael’s escapism and the materialization of his mourning of Kit. As Ausiello’s original memoir title suggests, the inevitability of Kit’s fate does not make their story lack meaning; rather, it highlights the complexities of two people in love who continue to grow and support each other regardless of their own shortcomings. In other words, with the ending essentially being “spoiled” the audience is able to – much like Michael in his nostalgia – appreciate the little moments in their relationship, allowing themselves to live in photographs, memories and even the sitcom-ification of Michael and Kit’s romance.
Both the film and its source material invite us to remember that grief (or any emotion for that matter) cannot be expressed in one single way, and that the mourning process can begin long before our loved ones are gone. Spoiler Alert is a combination of playful humor, self-awareness and appreciation for the moments that often go unnoticed in life, giving its audience permission to do the same.
Photo courtesy of Focus Features
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