Nature has enough examples to prove that something horrifying can be gorgeous too. A tornado is one of them—a force so powerful that it can rock the foundations of even the strongest of man-made marvels. Yet to look at it is to behold a spectacle that can only be regarded as a creation of God. The plot of “Supercell” surrounds this fact and shows a boy following his father’s footsteps to explore and decode this miracle of Mother Nature.
Spoilers Ahead
Plot Synopsis: What Happens In ‘Supercell’?
Legendary storm chaser Bill Brody passes away while chasing a storm after his vehicle gets hit by lightning. He leaves behind his wife, Quinn, a scientist, and their kid, William. William grows up sharing his father’s love for storms. As a teenager, he comes across a device made by his father that would allow one to hear a tornado’s breaths. Then one day, he receives a letter that contains his father’s journal. He decides to flee from home and go to the address where the letter was sent from. The guy is his uncle Roy, who is presently an employee at Brody Storm Tours, owned by a guy named Zane, who also shares their zeal for tornadoes. Brody Storm Tours began as Brody Storm Labs, established by Will’s father, Bill to research storms. After his death, the lab went bankrupt, and Zane bought it. With a never-before-seen storm on its way and his thirst to use his father’s device, William decides to follow the storm. Meanwhile, his mom is on her way to him. She has already spoken to Roy after finding out the address on the post’s envelope. Will she be able to reach him before the storm takes William in its grasp? Or will William get sucked into the supercell?
Man And Nature
“Supercell” addresses the symbiotic relationship that exists between nature and humans that humans need to respect. Throughout the film, we get to see people who are all drawn toward storms and take pleasure in capturing them through their lenses. Bill Brody dedicated his life to chasing storms and researching the phenomenon. At the beginning of the film, Bill tells little William how he wants to build a device that will allow them to listen to the heartbeat of a storm. This shows that Bill believed that a storm is an entity that lives and breathes just like we do. This naturally tells us that Bill’s love for storms isn’t scientific but organic. He eventually builds a device that can pick up the sound inside a storm when set to a particular frequency. However, he isn’t able to figure out what that frequency is. Years later, after Brody has passed away, his wife Quinn manages to deduce the frequency at which William is able to hear a storm “breathing.” Here’s what he is hearing: All things resemble lungs, breathing in and then out. Sometimes, when it finds the right conditions, a storm is able to rotate the rain out. This enables the storm to continue breathing for hours. In common language, this type of storm is called a supercell. The “breathing” of a supercell is pretty much like that of humans; the only difference is that it is in loud growls. Imagine thousands of lions taking heavy breaths in unison, in and out. To hear something like that is overwhelming, to say the least, not to mention that it takes a lot of courage too. So we can understand Bill’s enthusiasm and excitement to build something that would allow him to reach inside a storm and listen to its breaths. Towards the end of the film, Roy tells William that a storm defies all laws made by man. This is what makes it beyond human comprehension, no matter how much we try to understand it by giving the occurrence a scientific explanation. The grandeur, the colossal proportion, the deafening roar, a “Supercell,” is something one can only stare at in awe. But then again, it is a supercell that eventually brings the Brody family back together, i.e., William, his mother Quinn, his uncle Roy, and his ladylove Seamon. Talk about divine intervention.
‘Supercell’ Ending Explained – Does William Hear A Storm Breathing?
William has never been able to know his father, Bill. All that he knows about him is through his work. Naturally, he has been attracted to all that his father has worked on. He blames his mother for having no idea about his father. We cannot blame Quinn for this, as she experienced first-hand the harm that storms can cause after one snatched her husband away from her, and she doesn’t want to lose her son to it. As expected, William doesn’t understand this and finds his mother’s intention to keep him away from his father’s work as a means to prevent him from becoming like his father. But later on, William finds out that his mother has achieved something his father couldn’t. She has been able to deduce the particular frequency required to hear the “breathing” of the storms. She loved her husband and all that he did, and even after he passed away, she never stopped working until she achieved what her husband wanted. It is only normal for a mother to keep her child away from the very thing that took away the father. William is able to hear the breaths of a Supercell and manages to escape from underneath it without any harm. Thus, the device that Quinn didn’t want William to use is what allows William to fulfill his father’s dream and, by extension, brings him closer to his mother. Quinn too realizes this and accepts her reality rather than denying it. Her son is back and that’s all that matters.
“Supercell” is a nice film that gives us a taste of one of nature’s spectacles as well as explores the human element. There is a certain incompleteness as we wait for William to go deeper into the storm and see the supercell just as his father dreamed of it. However, we all know that going inside a storm isn’t possible. So, William’s escape from the storm is the incompleteness that we would feel in real life too. We cannot control a storm but can only admire it in awe and respect Mother Nature’s immense power.
“Supercell” is a 2023 action-adventure film directed by Herbert James Winterstern.
