Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies is a biographical movie based on the book by renowned TV journalist, Michael Ausiello. The film deals with themes like falling in love, daring to surrender to someone else, finding the love of your life, and losing that person to cancer. Jim Parsons stars in it.
Michael Ausiello and Kit Cowan meet at a gay club
The movie starts off with Michael Ausiello (Jim Parsons) being dragged to a gay club after work. Michael works for the famous TV Guide website writing reviews about TV shows.
Michael isn’t really the type who goes to find dates at a gay club but he went anyway. Kit (Ben Aldridge) however is the opposite when they meet there. Kit is completely into the gay scene and their theme parties. Again, they are polar opposites.
But Kit is interested enough to take Michael home with him. And when they first make love, we see that Michael has a bit of a complex. He wants to make love BUT is hesitant because he was an overweight kid. No pressure, says Kit. And they talk and talk ’til dawn about a lot of things.
Michael’s complex stems from his being overweight when he was younger and was bullied. Like being picked last for teams during school sports activities.
Fast forward and Michael meets Kit at his workplace. Kit is a photographer, who specialized in museum exhibitions. He works with his best friend, Nina (Nikki M. James). Nina tests Michael’s art flavors by showing him a painting.
While Michael sips on diet coke, he gives a review of the painting, albeit a little clumsy. He passes the test, and Nina and Kit both tell him the painting is crap. Michael is a bit worried that Nina doesn’t like him, Kit reassures him that if she doesn’t then she would have done more for him instead of making him work for it.
Kit is secretive about everything
Time passes and Michael and Kit have entered in a relationship. Kit even managed to get into Michael’s house after Michael rejected that earlier coming up with excuses like “My house is being disinfected” or whatever excuse he can come up with. The real reason was the incredibly huge collection of Smurfs. It was funny when Kit asked if it was a fetish. “no just a hobby”, Michael replied.
When Kit is taken to the hospital for an ulcer, which was also the first scary moment of the movie, his parents decide to come by. Kit asks Michael if he can remove anything from the apartment the two men live in basically, that could point to the fact that he is gay. It includes Kit’s Christmas gift which was part of the closet. <Insert Closet Gay joke here> And Kit and Michael do joke about it. “Are u offering me to go back in the closet?” The closet wouldn’t have you, Michael!
Michael, wondering why Kit would ask such a strange thing, goes to the apartment and cleans it out.
When Kit’s parents come in, they wonder why Michael is still there and how he knows where everything in the house is. Kit tries to get out of it by saying Michael crashes frequently at his place. But after a few more questions Kit just says it: I am gay mom, and Michael is my boyfriend.
I didn’t expect that Kit was still in the closet for his closest friends, his parents. His mom is shocked, his father is like: We are modern people… we had tickets to Woodstock. We didn’t go but still… we are progressive.
This scene in particular shows that Kit was still in the closet as far as his sexuality goes. He is scared to disappoint, to hurt, and afraid of the reaction of his parents. Also, he wants to show that he is a normal straight guy with a successful career.
The secretive trait that Kit possesses is established in this particular scene and carries over in other situations throughout the movie.
When he did admit that Michael was his boyfriend his parents took it pretty well. They were more upset that he didn’t confide in them rather than keep it a secret. As his mother, Marilyn, argues: I call you a couple of times a week and you couldn’t tell me? Which shows that his mother loves him unconditionally.
As far as his father, Bob (Bill Irwin) goes, he loves his son no matter what. And it shows throughout the movie that whenever Kit and his father are in a scene, they have a father-and-son moment instantly.
Love rears its ugly head
And with that, the relationship between Kit and Michael flourishes as never before. Christmas after Christmas, they spend time together.
But like with many relationships, annoyances and grievances come to the surface. Michael’s lust has diminished, let’s call that the 7-year itch. And Kit is looking for lust online.
They decide to go see a therapist and air all their grievances. And that’s when it all came out. For instance: When Kit met Michael, Michael only drank diet coke, and now it’s entire bottles of wine.
Michael caught Kit on Grindr. To which Kit says: we have an agreement, look but don’t touch. And it goes back and forth.
Then there is the infidelity. Kit cheats on Michael with an office worker. While during the therapy session, it was only implied. It actually did happen. The movie tries to make Michael look like he’s being paranoid but his hunch was correct. This is an example of Kit’s secretive nature: He cheated on Michael without talking to Michael first about their love life. Instead of doing so, he went behind Michael’s back. Kit’s secretive nature has devastating consequences for their relationship.
In turn Michael’s asexual nature or at least he seems to be repelled by doing the deed, which is also shown when they first try to make love. Michael struggles to let people get close to him at the start. The same goes for his apartment. Kit asked several times to visit his apartment but he always comes up with an excuse.
While Kit looks for one-night stands wherever he can have them, Michael looks for escapism in alcohol. And he uses “taking off the edge” as an excuse for drinking 1 to 2 bottles of wine.
And weed smoking. Kit smokes a lot of weed and it annoys Michael who vows to never smoke any weed ever.
The therapist tells them they resent each other but love each other too much to break up. And thus the therapist suggests that they break up. To think things over, reflect and see if there are any common grounds to get back together.
During Christmas, their friends make a toast and they tell the story about how they split up.
After the party, Kit and Michael wave the guests goodbye and when they are gone, Kit crumbles in pain. This is when the title of the movie, Spoiler Alert, is kind of explained. The hero, Kit who is Michael’s personal hero, is sick.
And this is where their love for one another flourishes once more. They realize that their differences are petty compared to the uphill battle of cancer. Their bond strengthens and they soon move back in. But without the fights, the cheating, the infidelity but the wine, and the pot are still there.
Spoiler Alert: Kit is diagnosed with cancer
Spoiler alert is ofcourse a reference to the title of the movie. But it also marks the beginning of the end.
Kit and Michael are fighting a battle they can’t win. They visit specialist after specialist. Some were very optimistic. But one of them just said it: We can buy you time if you do the radiation therapy. And we can manage the pain a bit.
Michael wants to keep fighting for whatever chance he thinks Kit has. Kit however is relieved. He knows where he stands now. And I seriously wish that I had that kind of insight. But more about that later.
Michael wants to inform Kit’s parents by driving up there. Kit wants to keep it a secret. What is with this guy and big secrets? It’s like, he wants to fight it all by himself. But it’s more like he wants to keep up appearances. Just like he did when he didn’t tell his parents he was gay.
And this is another one of Kit’s knacks for picking the best secrets to keep in order to keep an appearance. He wants to appear strong and of course, he is a strong man but fighting a battle against cancer. Alone? I am happy to see that he realizes in time that he can’t do it all by himself and that he does need help to get through this dark period of not only his life but also that of his friends and family and of course his lover, Michael.
Kit’s parents support him 100% ofcourse and they make a trip to Michael’s former vacation home near the sea. And there is a scene where you can see how Michael and Marilyn have grown closer to each other. And it appears that that didn’t happen overnight judging by their conversations, but also during Kit’s diagnosis, they grew closer together. Whereas Bob, Kit’s dad, grows closer to Kit by taking him for walks on the beach.
Michael and Kit make love one last time on the night before they leave for New York.
The best part of this entire chapter of the movie is that both Kit and Michael find each other again. Michael goes through the whole 9 yards. The agony, the pain, hope, the desperation. They go through it all and love each other more for it. And the acting of Jim Parsons, who plays Michael, and Ben Aldridge, who plays Kit, is amazing. They play the lovers Kit and Michael were in real life like they are that couple from Spoiler Alert.
Spoiler Alert: Cancer has spread a thousandfold
Back in New York, the doctor tells them that cancer has spread all over Kit’s body and in particular the brain.
Kit wants to enjoy the last days, weeks, and months of his life. But when there is chemotherapy, they decide to do it. Kit has cancer in his bottom and he has trouble sitting. So Michael runs to the nurse and asks for a bed. The nurse says they don’t have a bed. Michael is enraged. He runs to the nurse’s desk and tells her that his husband has a tumor in his rectum the size of the Death Star and he needs a bed because he can’t sit that long.
After the scene, Michael and Kit sit in the backyard and discuss marriage. The funniest part of the scene was when Michael was drinking a glass of wine but asked Kit if he could have a hit of his joint despite saying that he will never ever smoke that. His excuse was that he wanted to live in the moment and do it with Kit. And if pot smoking is the way to do it then so be it.
Kit proposes to Michael and they get married with all their friends and family present. And yes, the two of them were stoned out of their mind when Kit proposed.
This is the moment where the movie comes full circle: The resentment, the fighting, and ultimately the confession of Kit that he cheated on Michael with an office worker. Everything is spoken out. All the small issues that prevented the two men from having a good relationship are solved and they move forward by getting married.
The movie goes on with scenes of them watching RuPaul’s drag race up until the scene where Kit’s living his final moments.
The final moments are beautiful. It was so powerful, it made me cry. The end scene with Kit passing away is a real tear-jerker.
A Michael Ausiello TV show within a movie
The first time I saw Michael Ausiello’s inner world I was pleasantly surprised. It was done in the form of a sitcom from the 1980s. We see Michael as a young kid who is overweight and is being bullied. Not like bullied as in wedgies but more like he doesn’t get picked first when it is time for sports but he gets picked last.
It is also the time that he is introduced to Daytime soap operas by his mother. It is the start of an incredible career but if you knew back then what you know today, do you want to know what life has in store for you? I don’t!
The TV show isn’t just about Michael’s growing up but also draws a parallel between his youth and what’s happening to him in the movie. For instance, we see Michael’s mother cough badly. And you know it’s a bad cough implying that she has cancer. It’s not explicitly said in the movie but you do know it is.
The final scene turns into a TV show where the director says cut but ofcourse, we know this is only happening in Michael’s mind. Like it’s a coping mechanism in order for him to deal with the passing of the love of his life.
The movie Spoiler Alert is based on a true story
The movie Spoiler Alert: The Hero dies is based on the book written by Michael Ausiello. Michael Ausiello is the founder and editor-at-large of the site tvline.com. You have seen links in my articles many many times because the site is amazing.
Michael and Kit really were a couple and they did end up together before Kit’s passing.
Jim Parsons, of The Big Bang Theory and Young Sheldon, read the book and his husband Todd found him in tears after reading it. Together they decided to buy the rights to the book.
Jim and Michael have been friends through TVLine for years and it didn’t take long for Michael to say yes.
The cast of the movie features Jim Parsons, and Ben Aldridge but also features Sally Field who starred in Steel Magnolias or more recently in the Spiderman movies. Sally plays Kit’s mother. Bill Irwin stars as Bob, Kit’s dad. Irwin is mostly known for his role in Law & Order and Marvel’s Legion.
The cast is incredibly strong and the acting is out of this world. All of the actors have incredible range. I am sure you’d expect Jim Parsons to do another Sheldon-like character but Jim shows what he can do with a drama movie. It is incredible but again, without the cast, he’d be nowhere so kudos to the entire cast.
Spoiler Alert: This movie is a real tear-jerker
I have said before that I would expand as to why this movie is so personal to me. The movie deals with cancer. And if you know me then, you would know that I have lost a loved one to the disease.
The movie brought back memories of visiting doctor’s offices. The hope you have of the plan the doctors have with you. The moments you visit the hospital during the chemos. Having doctors tell you that the cancer is extremely aggressive and that your loved one won’t have more than six months left to live.
We were trying to make plans to stay optimistic about the future like planning trips to Amsterdam to visit our favorite restaurant one last time. Or making plans to see Indonesia one last time. But in reality, we weren’t given that much time. The cancer was indeed aggressive and she passed a couple of months after. All that and the movie made me realize once more that tomorrow isn’t promised to anyone.
