Michael (Jim Parsons) and Kit (Ben Aldridge) have been dating for some time and Kit insists on finally going to Michael‘s place. He hums and haws, and when he opens the door to his apartment it becomes clear why: the apartment is littered with thousands of smurfs. Shelves with Mike‘s smurfs collection covers every inch of free space, smurf posters are on the walls, there‘s even smurf bed sheets. Kit is about to end things, but he stays. Based on the autobiographical novel by Michael Ausiello, SPOILER ALERT tells the love story of Kit and Michael. A lot about Kit and Michael‘s love story is ordinary. The first meeting at a club is followed by first dates, their first home, happy years, the first grudges. However, it‘s clear from the film‘s first image that their happiness won‘t last: we see Kit gravely ill at a hospital, and Michael shows their mutual journey there in friendly, relatively unsentimental flashbacks. The look back changes the perspective. All of the good, bad, and average moments that are part of the romantic comedy stumbling blocks or springboards on the way to relationship bliss are already the blissful moments. There won‘t be more of those. It‘s clear that Michael Showalter‘s film has an autobiographical background. Instead of going for big drama, it shows realistic moments and allows for something akin to privacy too. When the two men tell Kit‘s parents about the diagnosis, the camera even leaves the room and just looks on from a distance. The screenplay was written by Dan Savage, a queer activist and writer of the sex advice column “Savage Love.“

Hendrike Bake (INDIEKINO MAGAZIN)

Translation: Elinor Lewy