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Focus Features releases Spoiler Alert, based on Michael Ausiello's memoir, in select theaters on December 2nd, 2022. NYC MOVIE GURU: Between entertaining the audience and provoking them emotionally as well as intellectually, which of those elements was most difficult to tweak in the editing room? Michael Showalter: The easy answer is all three. The challenge is to have the audience be entertained, laughing and going along for the ride because so much of it is just watching the main characters falling in love and getting to know each other. Obviously, the film takes a turn. All sorts of darker, more challenging themes are introduced. In editing, the challenge was to find the right balance between keeping the movie buoyant and joyful, but also allowing for it to still, kind of, carry the weight of where things, sort of, go towards the end. NYC MOVIE GURU: As a director, which of the emotions in Spoiler Alert was most challenging to capture? MS: I think it was really about the chemistry between Jim Parsons and Ben Aldridge--making sure that we really feel like these two people are real people who are falling in love and that they always remain as just human beings so that we don't take for granted the sad part of the story that's going to carry us to the end. It was really important to all of us that these are flawed people who are just trying to live life and to be good people, so to always keep their humanity and their flaws front-and-center. In the editing process, some things felt too sad or sometimes too funny or sometimes a scene felt too broad. We needed to scale it back or sometimes a scene felt like we were leaning too much into the heartbreak of it and then it was important to undercut some of that stuff. It's a long process of trial and error, really--just showing the movie over and over again to get those moments to where you feel like you're hitting them in exactly the right way. NYC MOVIE GURU: I don't think Spoiler Alert has a villain except for a silent, non-human one: Kit's cancer. What do you think? MS: In all of my films, I tend to love all of my characters. Unless there's a character who really, truly is a "bad guy," I, sort of, feel like I like the surprise of finding out that someone that you thought was a villain isn't a villain. In all of my movies, I enjoy subverting that expectation. In Spoiler Alert, we have the potential villain of Sebastian, the other man, and there's a great resolution to that. I enjoy giving every character in my movies their moment, so that's really important to me. Spoiler Alert was never about good or bad. NYC MOVIE GURU: What does the term "cinematic" mean to you? MS: Cinematic, to me, is anything that shows a way of seeing the world that has a specificity to it---that has a point of view. It doesn't have to be the most beautiful shot or the most elaborate shot or the most technical shot; it can just be something that's a way of looking at something---a way of showing a character or a way of showing a scene or of showing a beach or a sunset. Obviously, there's a lot of different versions of that as well, but, to me, it's just about having a point of view. NYC MOVIE GURU: How accurate would it be to say that the speech that Marilyn, Kit's mother, gives to Michael about the triathlon race is a metaphor? MS: Yes, that's definitely a big metaphor. Sally Field's character is a, kind of, triathlete enthusiast. She's not necessarily the best triathlete in the world, but there's this idea that she tells the story in the movie where she ran a race and one of her competitors cheats by cutting the line and, after the biking part, she disappears for a portion of the race and then reappears at the end and finishes first. She has this line of dialogue about that you can't do that; you have to run the race that's in front of you and you can't cheat the race. She even goes as far as to say that you don't do it for the money. This is something that's based on something that really happened that I was fascinated by, which is that in this microcosm of people in triathlons, it's not like they're getting any money out of it; you do it because you love it. You do it for the love of the people that you meet and the way that you push yourself. The reward is that you did it and that you pushed yourself to do something as challenging as a triathlon. So, the notion of cheating on a triathlon is so absurd because there's really no reward there. Everything that you would win from a triathlon, you lose if you cheat. I think that the metaphor in this is that there's something there about life and about what Kit and Michael are going through and what they're all going through as Kit battles his illness that you can't cheat it; you just have to face it head-on and go one foot in front of the other. In a sense, that's the harsh and beautiful reality of life. I suppose that there's some aspiration that that's a goal for all of us to live life with that mindset. NYC MOVIE GURU: Which film do you think would pair well with Spoiler Alert in a double feature? Which fictional character might be kindred spirits with Michael? MS: We always talked about Terms of Endearment. We even reference it in Spoiler Alert. There's a moment in the film where Michael actually says a line from Terms of Endearment in the hospital and then Kit calls him out on it and Michael says, "It worked for Shirley MacLaine." Terms of Endearment is another film that, kind of, asks us to live in our faults and to live in the unbearable imperfections of our lives and to just aspire to be good people as much as we possibly can. I think that Spoiler Alert/i> lives in that space. Main Page Interviews Menu Alphabetical Menu Chronological Menu ______________________________________________________ |
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