SUPERNOVA

(director/writer: Harry Macqueen; cinematographer: Dick Pope; editor: Chris Wyatt; music: Keaton Henson; cast: Colin Firth (Sam), Stanley Tucci (Tusker), Jame Dreyfus (Tim), Pippa Haywood (Lilly), Peter Macqueen (Clive), Nina Marlin (Charlotte), Ian Drysdale (Paul), Sarah Woodward (Sue); Runtime: 93; MPAA Rating: NR; producers: Emily Morgan, Tristan Goligher; Bleecker Street; 2020-UK)

“The performances by the two central figures Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci makes the film so heartfelt.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

Brit writer-director Harry Macqueen (“Hinterland”) creates this super-sensitive life-affirmative drama. The performances by the two central figures Colin Firth and Stanley Tucci makes the film so heartfelt.

Sam (Colin Firth), a musician, and Tusker (Stanley Tucci), a respected novelist, are gay partners of 20 years. For their vacation, taken after a life-changing diagnosis of Tusker shows him with signs of an early-onset of dementia, makes their brief time left on Earth more valuable. The pair travel across England in their old camper van visiting friends, family and places from their past.

Tusker keeps busy working on his new book, while spending more and more time with his hobby of astronomy.

The boys drop in on Sam’s sister and her family. Then on Tusker’s family house, where his sister still lives and the boy’s must share Tusker’s single bed when he was growing up.
 
When it comes time to find out what it is like for the surviving partner to live without his partner, the film grapples with that dark truth. It tries to tell us how devastating an illness is dementia, and does it in a sincere way but I don’t think it seems to be better conveyed to us than by Hopkins in “The Father.”

REVIEWED ON 1/9/2021  GRADE: B