Serena

Serena

Starring Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Rhys Ifans, Toby Jones

Directed by Susanne Bier

The Story:
In North Carolina in the late 1920s, George Pemberton (Bradley Cooper) is a successful businessman, focusing on the sale of timber.  He meets the mysterious, beautiful Serena (Jennifer Lawrence) and is instantly smitten by her.  After a whirlwind romance, they wed and she takes deep interest in his work, serving as his right hand (wo)man.

George's fellow workers and partners are wary of Serena, and as the Sheriff (Toby Jones) closes in on George's shady business dealings, Serena fears her dreams of an extravagant life will never come to fruition, so she resorts to even darker means to protect George and her desires, enlisting the help of George's friend Galloway (Rhys Ifans) -a man who feels he owes Serena a debt - to do the dirty work.  However, as George begins to uncover his wife's true nature, he learns that the next target could be himself.

The Synopsis:
"Serena" is the Bigfoot of modern cinema.  It was something talked about for over three years, yet it never was seen.  It was a big mystery as to why it was never released, especially with three-time Oscar nominee Bradley Cooper and Oscar winner Jennifer Lawrence as the leads, how bad could it be?  Especially since the two already have on-screen chemistry, starring in "Silver Linings Playbook" and "American Hustle?"

When the film was finally released, I learned that sometimes even the best actors can make mistakes.  "Serena" is a film based off a book written by Ron Rash, and of course I never heard of it nor read it, but my friend Jennine (whose blog can be found here:  http://livingawritinglife.blogspot.com/, and her review of the book here: http://www.livingawritinglife.blogspot.com/2013/10/serena.html) read the book and kept asking me when the movie was being released.  When it finally came out, I went to her place and watched it with her, her husband and another book fanatic, and having their input really shed light on how great the film COULD have been.

First let's get the actors out of the way.  Bradley Cooper seemed to really not care about the film at all, he didn't have the same passion he had in other work, and his accent kept drifting in and out, and at times made him almost impossible to understand.  Jennifer Lawrence performed a little better, portraying Serena at first as a sympathetic character who slowly spirals to the depths of madness after several traumatic life experiences, but her performance is really in her gaze, which was both hauntingly beautiful and downright terrifying.  For a film that has her name in the title, there's not much known about Serena's motives.  Why does she fall so hard for George?  How did their romance blossom so fast?  We only get clips of their romance, done in a high school fade in and out style, and all of a sudden they're married and co-owners of the timber company and everything is sunshine and roses - at least for five minutes.  Her performance draws instant comparisons to Rosamund Pike's much more commanding portrayal in "Gone Girl," as both women are clearly psychotic.  The remaining stock-character actors do their jobs well, but if they were replaced by life-sized cutouts no one would've been the wiser.

Next is the story.  Like I alluded to earlier, there's no real story on Serena, except when she was younger she lost her family in a fire.  There's no mention how she grew to prominence, why George would fall so hard for her, or what she saw in George in the first place.  The entire story is extremely simplistic - rich businessman falls for woman, woman wants more, great lengths are gone to keep a fruitless dream, everything gets resolved.  However, it takes a long time for all this to happen, and in between are muddled performances and an arc that seems to be escalating to a suspenseful and shocking ending, only to drop the ball so hard it goes through the floor and leaves you wondering what the heck you just watched, and, more importantly, why.

Finally is the cinematography, which is something that's greatly heralded on the DVD cover.  This should've been the first warning sign as it didn't advertise on the actors or story, but hey, the scenery is amazing!  While it was a stunning backdrop, the main setting looked like someone constructed a small town in the valley of a mountain, that just included the Pemberton's surprisingly small cabin, a few other buildings, a church and a small train depot.  It looked like a town people would easily abandon or forget.  The costumes were alright, as it was supposed to be the late 20s, so they accomplished that.  Good work.  Even if some of George's outfits reminded me of Indiana Jones.

The Summary:
If Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence weren't tied to this film, no one would even care if it was made.  An overdrawn, tiring yarn that makes you wonder why it was ever released in the first place.  The book - from what I've heard - is way better.

The Score: C