“Spoiler Alert” is a familiar love story which turns out to be more enjoyable and poignant than expected. Mainly revolving around the ups and downs of one ordinary gay couple, the movie swings back and forth between comedy and drama as gradually building up the life and personality of its two main characters along the story, and that is why its expected finale is really sad and touching instead of feeling kitschy or schmaltzy at all.

The early part of the film shows how Michael Ausiello (Jim Parsons) happened to encounter a handsome guy named Kit Cowan (Ben Aldridge). Mostly content with how his life in New York City has been going with a job he is really passionate about, Michael is not particularly interested in getting hooked up with any dude at present, but then he goes to a local gay bar as urged by one of his close friends, and that is where he comes across Kit, who happens to be enjoying his own time along with his best heterosexual female friend.

As interacting more with Kit, Michael cannot help but feel awkward mainly because Kit is quite opposite to Michael in many aspects. While Michael is usually shy and insecure mostly due to being a chubby overweight kid in the past, Kit is very direct and confident to say the least although he is not exactly openly gay unlike Michael. Michael soon finds himself attracted more to Kit despite his initial reluctance, and he eventually gives Kit his calling card later, which becomes the starting point of their relationship. As they keep meeting each other during next several months, they get closer and closer to each other, and then Michael decides to let Kit enter his little private world for showing more of himself, which catches Kit off guard for a hilarious reason.

While they subsequently become more serious about their relationship, Michael and Kit come to face a little private matter involved with Kit’s parents, who incidentally do not know yet that their son is gay. When Kit happens to spend some time a hospital due to one serious health problem, his parents immediately come without hesitation, and they naturally come to wonder why Michael constantly hangs around their son even though he is just a “friend”. It is not much of a spoiler to tell you that there soon comes a rather difficult moment of confession, but you may appreciate how this predictable moment is handled fairly well with enough sensitivity and tactfulness.

During next several years, Michael and Kit become happier than before. They eventually move together into a new apartment, and they show more love and understanding to each other, but then they also come to struggle with serious relationship issues. Because they still love each other despite that, they do try a lot for solving these issues of theirs, but they later come to decide that it is the best for both of them to put some distance between them.

And then another big problem suddenly occurs. On one day, Kit turns out to be suffering a serious case of cancer which quickly gets worse than expected, and Michael is certainly willing to stand by Kit as much as possible. Despite lots of care and treatment, Kit’s medical condition only gets worsened more than before, and both Kit’s parents and Michael become more saddened as preparing themselves for what will happen sooner or later to Kit.

Around that point, you will be definitely reminded of a bunch of other films ranging from “Love story” (1970) to “Terms of Endearment” (1983), but the screenplay by David Marshall Grant and Dan Savage, which is based on Ausiello’s memoir “Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies”, imbues the story with a considerable amount of wit, personality, and, above all, emotion. While a number of comic scenes which present Michael’s life as a TV sitcom series feel like a distracting overkill, the other parts of the film are handled with enough care and realism at least, and we actually get to know more about both Michael and Kit as touched more by how sincerely and desperately they stick together more in front of Kit’s impending death.

Above all, the movie works mainly thanks to the good chemistry between its two lead actors. Although he has been mainly known for his Emmy-winning comic performance in TV sitcom series “The Big Bang Theory”, Jim Parsons can be quite serious as already shown from Netflix film “The Boys in the Band” (2020), and he ably dials down his comic intensity while occasionally wielding some sense of humor as required. On the opposite, Ben Aldridge, a British actor who recently appeared in “Knock at the Cabin” (2023), complements his co-star well as they lovingly establish their characters’ personal relationship along the story, and they are also supported well by Sally Field and Bill Irwin, who provide some extra poignancy as Kit’s caring parents.

Considering that he previously directed “The Big Sick” (2017), which is partially based on the real-life love story between its two writers Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani, “Spoiler Alert” is not exactly a new territory for director Michael Showalter, but the overall result is relatively more satisfying than his recent previous film “The Eyes of Tammy Faye” (2021), which is a little too flawed but garnered an overdue Oscar for its lead actress Jessica Chastain anyway. The movie exactly accomplishes what it intends to do via its solid heartfelt moments tinged with genuine emotions, and that is more than enough for compensating for its small weak points in my inconsequential opinion.