Supernova: Beautiful and Painful

Put aside, if you can, your reticence to view yet another family-member/lover-dying-of-a-fatal-disease film in order to watch some of the best acting this year. Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci are simply wonderful together. Evidently long time friends, they share the screen with nuance and respect, immediately evoking an indelible sense of history, making unspoken communication palpable. These are understated actors with superb timing – perhaps never more so than here. Both artists are straight, yet physicality is natural and potent.

Sam (Colin Firth), a concert pianist, and Tusker (Stanley Tucci), a writer, have been together for two decades. To say they know each other well is minimizing a connection we recognize as soulmates. It won’t be long, however, before Tusker doesn’t recognize his partner as dementia is making a quick march across his mind. To watch the character subtly recede and emerge as he battles for lucidity and grasps at dignity is something of a marvel. Nor will Sam, in as much outer denial as he can muster, soon know the man he’s determined to nurse even as a recalcitrant baby.

Stanley Tucci and Colin Firth

The film takes place during a camper trip through Britain’s lake country (beautiful cinematography) as the couple visit dear friends and family on their way to a rented cabin, followed by the first concert Sam has given in some time – a promise to his partner. They argue about little things, all suddenly tinged with more drama because of circumstances, but none outsized. This film lacks histrionics portrayed in other Alzheimer-centric features. When the writer is honored at a dinner, he finds himself unable to read his speech. Sam takes the podium to unwittingly share, in part, a moving testimony to himself. It’s testimony to the power of a gaze.

Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci

Sam deferentially takes Tusker’s lead in the way he deflects an aura of tragedy and minimizes outward signs. Still, the pianist pushes after-concert plans even as his lover insists this trip is their last.

The somewhat misleading title refers to Tusker’s interest in astronomy.

A remarkable film.

The only other deft, predominantly two-hander I can think of in this ilk is 2014’s Love is Strange directed by Ira Sachs with John Lithgow and Alfred Molina as a devoted gay couple undergoing trials. Supernova takes it further.

Top photo: Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci
All photos courtesy of Bleecker Street Films

Supernova
Written and Directed by Harry MacQueen
Also with Pipa Haywood as Sam’s sister, James Dreyfus and Sarah Woodward
Stream on Amazon Prime

About Alix Cohen (1706 Articles)
Alix Cohen is the recipient of ten New York Press Club Awards for work published on this venue. Her writing history began with poetry, segued into lyrics and took a commercial detour while holding executive positions in product development, merchandising, and design. A cultural sponge, she now turns her diverse personal and professional background to authoring pieces about culture/the arts with particular interest in artists/performers and entrepreneurs. Theater, music, art/design are lifelong areas of study and passion. She is a voting member of Drama Desk and Drama League. Alix’s professional experience in women’s fashion fuels writing in that area. Besides Woman Around Town, the journalist writes for Cabaret Scenes, Broadway World, TheaterLife, and Theater Pizzazz. Additional pieces have been published by The New York Post, The National Observer’s Playground Magazine, Pasadena Magazine, Times Square Chronicles, and ifashionnetwork. She lives in Manhattan. Of course.