Spoiler Alert

A film about a real relationship. Michael is a television writer. He writes about series, is shy and does not like his own body. He meets Kit in a bar. Kit is a photographer; easy, open, everything Michael is not. The relationship begins and lasts fourteen years. The film does not pass over that time quickly; getting used to living together, meeting the families, a period apart and coming back together are told in detail. Then a diagnosis arrives. Kit has cancer and it is advanced. From there the film is about hospitals, treatment and decisions. Kit's parents are inside it too; they are with their son and the distance between them and Michael closes. What the narrative is interested in is not illness but form: Michael thinks about his life as a series, and the film carries that into its structure with episodes, flashbacks and childhood scenes played inside a sitcom. The source is Michael Ausiello's memoir, and the book's title gives away the ending from the start. Jim Parsons plays Michael and Ben Aldridge plays Kit. Sally Field and Bill Irwin play the parents. Michael Showalter directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes relationship films drawn from real life. Who it is not for: anyone the subject would weigh on; the film shows the illness and the last stretch directly.