Written by David Marshall Grant And Dan Savage
Directed by Michael Showalter
Michael (re Kit): "I wanted our story to be a picture perfect happy ending love story but what we got was a real love story."
Love stories and television shows I suppose could go hand in hand and here, it's almost like the perfect marriage of both. You have a love story between television journalist Michael Ausiello (Jim Parsons) and photographer Christopher 'Kit' Cowan (Ben Aldridge) and it's a relationship that we get to see unfold in this movie.
Based on Ausiello's own book, Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies, we open with Michael during Kit's last few moments in the hospital where he died to a trip down memory lane as Michael showed a bit of his past and close relationship with his mother, Mrs. Ausiello (Tara Summers). Therr's a few moments in this move where Michael's childhood was looked at through the prism of a sitcom and it's pretty effective.
Of course the main story here does involve his relationship with Kit and their first meeting definitely wouldn't feel out of place of a romcom with a charming meet cute at a bar with the both of them. A meeting becomes a date and soon enough they're actually dating. If a Smurf collection cannot pull the pair apart, then nothing can. Except of course, the big C itself.
Kit's diagnosis happened within the second half of the movie during a time where him and Michael had been together for over a decade but had been living apart due to issues on both sides. We saw Michael do everything in his power to help Kit fight his cancer to little avail while also getting time to know both of Kit's parents, Marilyn (Sally Field) and Bob (Bill Irwin), both of whom were a massive support to the couple.
I'm not gonna lie. I do follow Ausiello on Twitter, due to him being a television journalist and vaguely knew about his relationship with Kit and the book this movie adapted. Their relationship onscreen was presented as two people, fairly different to one another who fell in love and had thirteen years together. It's a relationship that like many had it's ups and downs but one where two people were clearly in love with the other.
I think both Jim Parsons and Ben Aldridge had a task on them to get this right and both of them absolutely rose to the challenge here. They had believable chemistry with one another and the moment where Kit died was absolutely heartbreaking to watch with both actors giving it their all. Then there was Michael's eulogy itself, adding to the poignancy of his love for Kit.
This movie might be a condensed version of a relationship spanning the length it did but I do feel like it did a great job of telling everything it needed to do. Seeing both Michael and Kit fall in love with each other, go through the odds they went through. I don't class myself as a romantic person but this was definitely a beautiful but very human love story to watch and I may have shed a tear too.
- Smurfs aside, Michael had a thing for both Gilmore Girls and Felicity while both him and Kit were fans of Rupaul's Drag Race. Kit was also a fan of magic as a kid.
- Kit did have an affair with a co-worker named Sebastian, played by Queer Eye's Antoni Porowski. Michael likening him to Tom Daley was amusing.
- Standout music: Kylie's Can't Get You Out Of My Head and Robyn's Dancing On My Own.
- Chronology: Aside from scenes from Michael's childhood, the movie itself spans from 2001 to 2015. Christmas factored a lot in this movie.
Spoiler Alert really was a perfect depiction of Michael and Kit's relationship, fantastically brought to life by the script and direction, but especially the knockout performances from both Jim Parsons and Ben Aldridge as well as the always wonderful to watch Sally Field. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Rating: 9 out of 10
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