SUPERNOVA
****
Director: Harry MacQueen
Screenplay: Harry MacQueen
Principal cast:
Colin Firth
Stanley Tucci
Pippa Haywood
Nina Marlin
Sarah Woodward
Ian Drysdale
Country: UK
Classification: M
Runtime: 94 mins.
Australian release date: 15 April 2021.
Set in Cumbria in the Lake District of England, Harry MacQueen’s profoundly moving story, Supernova, takes us on a road-trip with a gay couple who have been together for 20 years and are now facing the misery of early-onset dementia (to be specific, one of them has what’s called Posterior Cortical Atrophy, or PCA). This illness is, naturally, having an inexorable effect on their lives. It is wreaking uncertainty on the middle-aged pair so they’ve decided to travel north in their old campervan to visit friends and family for possibly the last time, given the inevitable memory loss that is symptomatic of the disease. Released hard on the heels of Florian Zeller’s equally gut-wrenching The Father, it makes for an interesting comparison in exposing the enormous anxiety that surrounds such diagnoses. Writer/director MacQueen says that Supernova, his second feature, “is the result of a lengthy and immersive research process. Over a three-year period, I worked closely with the UK’s leading dementia specialists… and collaborated with many individuals and families affected by the condition. I have spent time with people who have since died both from dementia and suicide - in secret and in public - and seen the fallout from that first-hand.” In other words, his sad tale is entirely authentic.
Sam (Colin Firth) is a concert pianist and Tusker (Stanley Tucci) an author with young-onset dementia. It’s been two years since the diagnosis and the couple have put their careers on hold as they try to come to terms with Tusker’s illness. To create a diversion, they set off to visit Sam’s sister, Lilly (Pippa Haywood), at her family home in the Lake District, where friends have gathered for a surprise party secretly organised by Tusker for Sam. It becomes apparent that this is a farewell occasion, on Tusker’s part, as he is well aware of his declining situation and wants to confirm his love and devotion to his partner. At the gathering, Tusker is incapable of reading a speech he has prepared and asks Sam to do it. Devastated by the impact his disease is having on Sam, he opens up to Lilly, who tells him that, “You're still you Tusker. You're still the guy he fell in love with.” To which he replies, “No. I'm not. I just look like him.” It’s in moments like this that MacQueen takes his audience into the most personal and devastatingly intimate of spaces.
Tucci and Firth give the performances of their careers. Apparently, they swapped roles early on in rehearsal and, judging by what we see on screen, it was a wise decision. The locations are also magnificent and veteran cinematographer Dick Pope captures the exquisite beauty in superb fashion. The main theme of MacQueen’s spare script is love and devotion and much of the story is communicated through body language and the silent familiarity that is part of any couple’s life, rather than spoken out loud. The men are scared and confused and on thoroughly unfamiliar ground. Their situation poses the question, what will life be like without the person you have shared it with? The road-trip reveals secrets that Sam and Tusker have kept from each other - or been too afraid to raise - and they’ve both given thought to the future but arrived at very different conclusions as to how their love story ends.
Supernova exemplifies how couples become not only confidantes and companions but create a unique bond that is deeply personal and impenetrable from the outside. Discussing his film, the director has said, “It has been one of the most profound and important experiences of my life. The characters and themes in Supernova reflect my attempt to do these people and their stories justice in a truthful and original manner - to place a selfless, loving relationship in the context of an immediate future that hangs in the balance. From the outset my desire was to make an empowering, powerful, challenging and timely film about what we are willing to do for the people that we love.” In that, he has triumphed. As Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote all those years ago, “’tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all”.
Screenplay: Harry MacQueen
Principal cast:
Colin Firth
Stanley Tucci
Pippa Haywood
Nina Marlin
Sarah Woodward
Ian Drysdale
Country: UK
Classification: M
Runtime: 94 mins.
Australian release date: 15 April 2021.
Set in Cumbria in the Lake District of England, Harry MacQueen’s profoundly moving story, Supernova, takes us on a road-trip with a gay couple who have been together for 20 years and are now facing the misery of early-onset dementia (to be specific, one of them has what’s called Posterior Cortical Atrophy, or PCA). This illness is, naturally, having an inexorable effect on their lives. It is wreaking uncertainty on the middle-aged pair so they’ve decided to travel north in their old campervan to visit friends and family for possibly the last time, given the inevitable memory loss that is symptomatic of the disease. Released hard on the heels of Florian Zeller’s equally gut-wrenching The Father, it makes for an interesting comparison in exposing the enormous anxiety that surrounds such diagnoses. Writer/director MacQueen says that Supernova, his second feature, “is the result of a lengthy and immersive research process. Over a three-year period, I worked closely with the UK’s leading dementia specialists… and collaborated with many individuals and families affected by the condition. I have spent time with people who have since died both from dementia and suicide - in secret and in public - and seen the fallout from that first-hand.” In other words, his sad tale is entirely authentic.
Sam (Colin Firth) is a concert pianist and Tusker (Stanley Tucci) an author with young-onset dementia. It’s been two years since the diagnosis and the couple have put their careers on hold as they try to come to terms with Tusker’s illness. To create a diversion, they set off to visit Sam’s sister, Lilly (Pippa Haywood), at her family home in the Lake District, where friends have gathered for a surprise party secretly organised by Tusker for Sam. It becomes apparent that this is a farewell occasion, on Tusker’s part, as he is well aware of his declining situation and wants to confirm his love and devotion to his partner. At the gathering, Tusker is incapable of reading a speech he has prepared and asks Sam to do it. Devastated by the impact his disease is having on Sam, he opens up to Lilly, who tells him that, “You're still you Tusker. You're still the guy he fell in love with.” To which he replies, “No. I'm not. I just look like him.” It’s in moments like this that MacQueen takes his audience into the most personal and devastatingly intimate of spaces.
Tucci and Firth give the performances of their careers. Apparently, they swapped roles early on in rehearsal and, judging by what we see on screen, it was a wise decision. The locations are also magnificent and veteran cinematographer Dick Pope captures the exquisite beauty in superb fashion. The main theme of MacQueen’s spare script is love and devotion and much of the story is communicated through body language and the silent familiarity that is part of any couple’s life, rather than spoken out loud. The men are scared and confused and on thoroughly unfamiliar ground. Their situation poses the question, what will life be like without the person you have shared it with? The road-trip reveals secrets that Sam and Tusker have kept from each other - or been too afraid to raise - and they’ve both given thought to the future but arrived at very different conclusions as to how their love story ends.
Supernova exemplifies how couples become not only confidantes and companions but create a unique bond that is deeply personal and impenetrable from the outside. Discussing his film, the director has said, “It has been one of the most profound and important experiences of my life. The characters and themes in Supernova reflect my attempt to do these people and their stories justice in a truthful and original manner - to place a selfless, loving relationship in the context of an immediate future that hangs in the balance. From the outset my desire was to make an empowering, powerful, challenging and timely film about what we are willing to do for the people that we love.” In that, he has triumphed. As Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote all those years ago, “’tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all”.