Supergirl is about learning to live with, instead of for, loss

Longtime readers of this blog will know that I am a fan of the CW Supergirl show] and even chose my name as an homage to that particular Kara Danvers. Having enjoyed the new Superman film that came out last year, I was very excited to hear about the related Supergirl project starring Milly Alcock. The subsequent trailers only made me more hyped. Yesterday, I went to see Supergirl in theatres, and now I need to gush about it. This is a film that embodies compassion and heroism every much as Superman did, with the added bonus—in my opinion—of a female lead who is defined not by the men in her life but by her choices to protect the innocent.

This will be a spoiler-free review. I will do my best to reveal only what was shown in the trailers and speak very elliptically about everything else!

The film is a loose adaptation of a comic book miniseries called Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow. I can’t speak much to the film as an adaptation, for I’m actually not a comic book girlie, and I haven’t read it! What I can say is that this is a damn good superhero movie.

Milly Alcock’s Kara Zor-El is quite different from Melissa Benoist’s portrayal in the CW show. This was something I anticipated, and I had tried my best, going into the movie, to promise I would take Alcock’s Kara on her own terms. This Kara didn’t get adopted by the Danvers family, and she is still processing the grief and trauma of leaving and losing her parents and Krypton. The juxtaposition of two Kryptonian refugees—one who remembers Krypton, one who doesn’t—has of course always been the heart of the Supergirl/Superman dichotomy. Supergirl is Superman’s more alien cousin in most continuities.

The Kara of this film is deep in the throes of culture shock. Corwenswet’s Clark Kent grew up, for all intents and purposes, fully assimilated into American culture. Kara is the refugee who remembers, yet her only real link back to Krypton is Krypto. Throughout the film, we see this tension reified by her use of human technology and cultural touchstones—headphones and an iPod, references to Spongebob and other media—even as she travels from alien world to alien world. She’s not from Earth, not of Earth … and she also isn’t from Krypton anymore either, not really. Hence the power in a line from the trailer, when Kara says to Krypto, “Home is wherever you are, buddy.”

When that trailer dropped, some people—including myself—joked that Krypto’s peril meant this movie would be like John Wick, just with a girl as the main character. That was tongue-in-cheek, of course (at least on my part), and the actual film is nothing like that. This is not a revenge rampage. It’s a quest, and it is also a distraction. If Krypto hadn’t been hurt, Kara would have found something else to distract her from her pain—this particular distraction just happens to involve taking on an interstellar brigand.

This baddie, Krem, is one of the less satisfying parts of the film, to be honest. That’s no shade on Matthias Schoenaerts, who makes the most of what he is given and brings some delightful, dynamic moments to a character we are told, in no uncertain terms, to loathe and despise. And look, I’m not saying that every antagonist in a movie has to be shades of grey, especially in a superhero movie. Sometimes it’s just really nice to have a bad guy who is a bad guy, and Krem certainly fits that bill. Yet the movie seems very determined to drive that home for the audience, almost as if it’s worried we’ll forget. Murdering a girl’s entire family and shooting a puppy aren’t enough, apparently, so the film details Krem’s additional misogynistic crimes, establishing that Space Patriarchy is alive and well in this universe, and women and femmes have as hard a time off-Earth as they do on-Earth—good thing Supergirl is around to stop it!

Seriously, though, I think this film has some interesting things to say about gender roles, grief, and trauma. Kara and Ruthye have much in common because they’ve both lost their families, and of course, they both want to find Krem. They both feel the weight of preserving their family’s memories. And they are both young women (girl, in Ruthye’s case) in a universe where this can be a disadvantage. There are so many gendered moments in this film where Kara uses that to her advantage or is underestimated simply because of her gender—I don’t think Krem, if he ever had Superman at his mercy, would tell Superman that he’s beautiful when he cries!

Throughout the film, men put expectations on Kara’s behaviour. Clark, as well-meaning as he is, clearly expects Kara to come home and be the good and dutiful cousin and superhero he wants her to be. Kara’s father (and to be fair, her mother as well), wanted her to “be good.” Krem wants to break her, kill her, display her as a trophy (like I said, subtlety is not a part of his personality). It’s really only Lobo, portrayed by the always-delightful chaos monster that is Jason Momoa, who doesn’t put preconceived notions of womanhood on her, simply taking her as she comes each time they encounter one another. But Lobo himself is an interesting foil to Kara. He, too, has lost his people—and no one blinks an eye that his response to this trauma is to become an interstellar bounty hunter because he is a man.

Thus, Kara’s whole evolution in this film is about figuring out what she stands for. Her parents wanted her to be a symbol of the goodness of Krypton. Her cousin wants her to be a hero to the people of Earth. Ruthye wants her to help kill Krem. Everyone wants, and Kara shies away because all she can do in this moment is feel. There is a memorable moment, which I think was in the trailer, where she flies into the sky, right up into space, where she then lets loose a primal scream—and despite the silence because of vacuum, we can hear that scream in our souls. Kara (and Ruthye) are so deeply entrenched in their sense of loss that it propels them. They are living for these feelings of loss, whereas they need to find a way to keep living with those feelings.

The movie’s music choices and cinematography back up this characterization. I loved the soundtrack, including a fun, haunting cover of “The Middle” that plays during some delightful slo-mo. The action sequences are very dynamic, and much like last year’s Superman, the film as a whole has abandoned that awful trend of lighting being so dark you wonder why there’s lighting at all. (Also, as someone who believes a film seldom has a good reason to be over two hours, I was pleased that Supergirl clocks in at one hour, forty-eight minutes.) My only criticism of the action is that many of the scenes have a repetitive feel: Kara takes on a score of bad guys, flying and jumping all over as she rains blows down upon them. It’s wonderfully chaotic and really well realized on screen, but I also don’t think it’s a coincidence the best fight scenes are the smaller ones. To that end, I really enjoyed that there are multiple points in the story where Kara, for various reasons, is without her powers, and she still knows how to kick ass.

Finally, I want to close by sharing how powerful it felt, as an aromantic woman, to see a female-led blockbuster film that doesn’t centre romance in any way, shape, or form. There is no love interest for Kara in this movie, and as much as people put expectations on her, there is no hint that her life is empty or incomplete because she hasn’t got around to dating. Juxtaposed with the contrasting domesticity of Clark and Lois’s marriage in Superman, this is a welcome role reversal. I’m not trying to claim Kara Zor-El for the aromantic spectrum, mind you, merely celebrate this rare gem of a film where a woman is allowed to feel her pain, deal some pain of her own, and no one asks when she’s getting married.

I was hyped before I saw Supergirl, and I’m hyped after it. I want more. Was it perfect? No, of course not. But it is a more character-focused, intimate story in an even more epic setting than Superman, and I think Alcock and the rest of the cast absolutely crushes the performance. This is a well-made film that at least makes an attempt, even if it is clumsy at times, to say interesting things about femininity, feminism, family, and feels. However you feel about the end of the film, Kara is notably changed by the events herein, and while her grief will always be a part of her, she is learning to carry it, as all of us must inevitably learn to do along the way.