Tropic Sprockets / Supernova

By Ian Brockway

Director Harry Macqueen (Hinterland) is a master of detail. His latest film is a stirring and direct portrait of a loving couple on a road trip, full of tension, amorous affection and empathy. Step by step, we get to know these two men and a picture develops that encapsulates the universal. “Supernova” is a film that will pull you in and leave a mark upon the heart.

Sam (Colin Firth) and Tusker (Stanley Tucci) are a married couple on a road trip together, driving through the Lake District. Tusker has just endured some treatment for early onset Alzheimer’s disease.

The trip is a well needed respite.

When pulling into a diner, Tusker and Sam get fierce stares. “Do you want his autograph?” Tusker asks the server. “Do you have a pen?”

The couple is very at ease. It has been twenty years. Sam’s caress puts Tusker to sleep and together they are familiar with every inch of their spouse. Micro gesture, by micro gesture through the very pores of the face, the audience becomes familiar too.

One gets the uneasy feeling that the trip was mostly Tusker’s idea, though Sam is content to oblige, wanting to share a personal piano recital, a professional triumph for him.

With a bit of luck, Tusker can work on his new book.

After a stop, Tusker is nowhere to be found. Sam drives into the woods. Tusker is a half mile away, staring blankly ahead.

Sam closes the door to the R.V. and sobs into a washcloth. The pain is visceral.

The film contains frequent close-ups of the head, lips and hands. Kissing and touch is what bonds them. Most probably their love was once a fleshy circus, libidinous and free.

Each time Sam is flustered, he makes a recording to document their time together, to keep events in line. Tusker is the most adventuresome of the pair with a sly smile and a sudden laugh. Sam is more mannered and quiet, bearing the weight and soldiering on. A silent storm shows on his face, tightening in wrinkles, pale, puffy or a harried red. Sam grasps for control, flexing his meaty hands, while Tusker rhapsodizes about the constellations, plucking the stars conversationally, with his long fingers—an urban astronaut in round lenses. During a surprise party, after some laughter he is left alone, as the swirl of children drift by, motes of happy color.

Tusker is content in solitude.

Minutes later, Sam rummages through Tusker’s manuscript, finding multiple pages of giddy writing only to find the hand drift into scribbles and then a white emptiness. In an envelope addressed to Tusker, are several glass vials of a drug that resemble death’s head skulls, scary and malevolent.

Through each stop the couple makes, the English countryside swirls about, at times festive, at others with a quality of foreboding.

This is one of the most realistic relationship films you will ever see, excellently understated—plainly delivered but poignant.

“Supernova” manages to be tender without melodrama, illustrating the miracle of love in all its incarnations, a human element—soft and subtle, yet glaring with an eccentricity that is unique to every couple.

Write Ian at [email protected]

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