Jim Parsons and Ben Aldridge star as couple Michael and Kit in the lovely holiday film Spoiler Alert. It’s about how their relationship deepens when Kit falls ill.
The film also stars Bill Irwin, Jeffery Self, and Sally Field in a delightful turn as Kit’s mother.
Via the New York Times:
The film is strongest when it falls silent, allowing the actors to communicate their thoughts with a look. A glance at an older couple at a restaurant tells us everything about Michael’s panic that his fantasy future is slipping away; later, when Kit breaks the news of his diagnosis to his parents (Sally Field and Bill Irwin), the camera steps outside into the yard to bear witness to the moment through a window. As the mood darkens, even this underwhelmed critic misted up at the sight of the two men quietly holding each other in bed. It’s the ideas left unsaid that linger, the film’s observation of how couples make room for each other’s foibles, visualized here by a phalanx of Smurfs siloed to a display shelf in their shared apartment.
Fun fact: David Marshall Grant and Dan Savage adapted it from the memoir Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies by Michael Ausiello.
You can check it out in NY/LA/SF at select theaters starting today, with a nationwide release on Friday December 9.
Watch the trailer:
Image: Giovanni Rufino / © 2022 FOCUS FEATURES LLC.
