Between Heartstopper, Fire Island, and Bros, 2022 was a landmark year for gay love stories in mainstream media. And yet, Spoiler Alert stands out for exploring the full breadth of a couple's dynamics — through thick and thin — over the course of many years.
Based on Michael Ausiello's 2017 memoir Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies, this film isn't the idealistic version of a queer experience in high school, nor the queer version of a beloved romance novel, nor is it attached to classic rom-com tropes. Instead, Spoiler Alert tells the very real story of two adults experiencing blissful love and brutal heartbreaks.
This film adaptation has a star-studded cast featuring Jim Parsons (Michael), Ben Aldridge (Kit), Sally Field (Marilyn), and Bill Irwin (Bob), among others. And, even though adapting someone's real life story can be tricky, Parsons was pleasantly surprised by Ausiello's approach to helping them make the film.
"The conversations with Michael were always to remind anybody involved with it that he understood the difference between his real life and the movie that was now being made," Parsons tells PRIDE. "His graciousness and sanity about the process, I think was not ordinary, and I think surprised everybody. It was something we were very grateful for."
Actor Ben Aldridge, memoir author Michael Ausiello, and actor Jim Parsons pose together in a promotional image for Spoiler Alert film.Linda Källérus/Focus Features
As the lead actor and a producer in Spoiler Alert, Parsons has reflected on the importance of bringing a real love story between two gay men to the big screen.
"It was important for me to tell [this story] because I felt so impacted by it," Parsons explains. "I'm kind of learning what is powerful about this movie, as other people are seeing it too. And seeing through other people's eyes, it's been very moving. I don't know that I necessarily consciously saw it coming: To see people so gratified to see a gay couple as the central couple in what is really just a love story in that 'universal,' umbrella, type of way."
Jim Parsons and Ben Aldridge in Spoiler Alert.Focus Features
Aldridge is proud of how this film portrays a gay relationship from a perspective that isn't often seen in other movies and TV shows.
"One of the things I'm most proud of about this film is that it gives you the full spectrum of what it is to be in a relationship," Aldridge tells PRIDE. "I think we see romantic films that [are] often so rose-tinted, and they've kind of sold us a bit of a lie — which is a great, great amount of escapism. But I think there's a reality to this in that it's about what time does to a relationship."
Aldridge notes that Spoiler Alert is about "what life does to a relationship. How you grow at different rates, how you nurture that, how you can be attracted to people outside of the relationship, how you navigate and negotiate together and keep that alive. And I loved that."
Watch PRIDE's full interview with the cast of Spoiler Alert, as well as book author Michael Ausiello, in the video below. Spoiler Alert is now in theaters.
