Director: Harry Maqueen

Stars: Colin Firth, Stanley Tucci

Actor turned writer-director Harry Macqueen’s second feature is a slightly mannered but touching two-hander relationship drama meets road movie.

Sam (Firth) and Tusker (Tucci) are a middle-aged couple driving their pokey camper van on a road trip to the Lake District. Sam is a concert pianist and Tusker is a novelist. Their bickering and affectionate teasing suggests that they are a normal, content couple. Then an incident at a travel café reveals that something is amiss: Tusker has early dementia and this is a kind of farewell tour.

Coming so shortly after the formally bold and audacious dementia drama, ‘The Father’, the middlebrow feel, bolstered by the couples’ rarefied lifestyle and occupations, renders this a little staid.

Faultless and heartfelt performances break through the tastefully subdued atmosphere with the leads exhibiting a seemingly effortless chemistry. Tucci is characteristically cheeky and mischievous as a man who has come to terms with his fate, while Firth, although still upper lippin’ like it’s 1948, is heart-breaking as the one being left behind, defiant, hoping against hope and barely able to supress his anger and frustration.

Cinemaphotographer Dick Pope renders the Lake District environs in suitably muted autumnal hues.

Suprernova is released on 25th June

David Willoughby

Follow David on @DWill_Crackfilm