December 5, 2022 | Arts / Entertainment

Two very different films explore gay relationships

Two upcoming films are getting a lot of buzz for their emotional portrayal of gay life, but they promise two very different experiences for audiences.

Erotic thriller In Bed follows Guy, Dan, and Joy. Their lives revolve around hard-partying, love, and anguish. The Nitzan Gilady film uses as its backdrop a shooting at a Pride parade, which affects the three main characters in different ways.

As seen in the trailer, chemsex features heavily in the movie.

“Rather than stigmatizing, I wanted to show this side of our culture in a truthful way,.” Gilady explained. “Not in the sense of being realistic or documentary-like, but portraying, in an honest and visceral way, the feeling of being high, reaching for fantasy, the distortion of reality, and loss of control.”

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And then there's romantic tear-jerker Spoiler Alert.

The film is an adaptation of American journalist Michael Ausiello’s memoir Spoiler Alert: The Hero Dies: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Other Four-Letter Words. The book is about Ausiello and his relationship with Kit Cowan, and how it evolved once Cowan was diagnosed with a terminal illness.

Ausiello is played by Jim Parsons (from The Big Bang Theory) while his partner Cowan is portrayed by Ben Aldridge (Pennyworth).