Like the RV, the film spends a whole fucking lot of its running time refusing to shift gears, and if that means that it approaches the end point of its narrative at a rather snoozy walking pace, well, tough shit. In a film that gobbles up symbolically freighted dialogue with the unthinking ferocity of a little child tearing her way through a bag of cookies, there's absolutely no doubt that this is meant to point us towards something other than Sam's driving habits, but presumably it's not meant to be a symbol for Supernova itself.

Among the very first conversations - maybe even the first conversation - in Supernova finds an old couple, Sam (Colin Firth) and Tusker (Stanley Tucci) lightly sniping at each other over Sam's driving, and his refusal to ever shift out of a low gear to actually start moving the RV they're in at something resembling cruising speed.