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Dan Savage: "Spoiler Alert"

 This movie was intensely interesting to me, because Dan Savage is an actual writer, and because there were a few small subversive moments in the middle.


Savage has written a great deal about marriage and sex. It's been years since I read his two excellent memoirs--"The Commitment" and "The Kid"--but, as I recall, Dan and his husband Terry have a fairly open arrangement, and Dan has been candid about the various complications. (It's clear that Dan doesn't think an open marriage is *more* complicated than a conventional marriage; I think he'd say that all arrangements are complicated, and why not go ahead and look at the difficult parts?)

In "Spoiler Alert," Savage is writing about someone's "look, but don't touch" agreement. This agreement doesn't work. One partner is fairly certain the other is "touching"--on top of "looking"--and, in fact, the suspicions are valid. Savage has a soapbox moment where he indirectly wags a finger at the puritanical United States; when an indiscretion is unveiled, it's actually the "innocent" husband who makes the apology. The apology is essentially this: "I'm sorry I'm a neurotic mess who stopped having sex with you." The graciousness of this apology seems a bit pie-in-the-sky--I felt I'd briefly left behind the world of realism--but I appreciated the boldness.

Another mildly subversive moment concerns couples therapy. The central marriage has a lengthy crisis--and an impartial adjudicator is eventually consulted. This therapist calmly says, "You guys seem to love each other, and resent each other, and the resentment isn't insurmountable. But you need to live apart for a while to recall what you're doing, why you have committed to this marriage." Savage has a wonderful ensuing scene where an oblivious colleague toasts the two married men for "sticking with your bond, your closeness, for thirteen years. You're really making it work." The leads then giggle and reveal that their marriage is seriously under siege. I can't think of similar scenes from mainstream Hollywood--and the small sliver of gallows humor just "felt like real life."

I was so inspired by Savage's work on this script--not because the script is a triumph. It's not. There are sitcom moments that don't work, and sometimes the character-building choices seem facile. (I'm thinking of a particular roommate, and I'm thinking of a supermodel doctor toward the end of the story.) I'm inspired because Savage is stretching himself at this late stage of his career. The movie seems to be "about death"--but it's not. It's about the thorniness and beauty involved in any kind of commitment. That particular theme has been a lodestar for Savage, for many years. I'm happy he has found a new way to explore his own special obsession.
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