Directed by: Susanne Bier
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Toby Jones, Rhys Ifans, David Dencik
Serena is a lush, exquisitely photographed film with a screenplay that is only half-finished. There are lots of subplots juggled, but no satisfactory payoff. The actors try their best with underwritten characters. The movie sat on the shelf for three years after filming wrapped in 2012. I read reports of editing and distribution issues, both of which don't mean much without a decent script. Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence teamed up for the splendid Silver Linings Playbook (2012) and the filmmakers wanted to capitalize on that successful pairing. Lightning did not strike twice.
As I said, it is not the fault of the actors that Serena doesn't work. Cooper and Lawrence are enormously appealing and talented, but even they can't rescue this. Cooper stars as George Pemberton, who runs a lumber company in Depression-era North Carolina. At least I think it's North. Maybe it's South. The characters just say "Carolina" when referring to their home state.
They are in the middle of a land-clearing project, but have eyes on expansion. George and his right-hand man Buchanan (Dencik), pay off local politicians to gain favor and keep secret accounts. Workplaces like Pemberton Lumber Company are why OSHA was created forty years later. At least two people are killed on the job and others like the foreman Galloway (Ifans) has his hand chopped off by an errant ax. These incidents are swept aside and never mentioned again.
George travels to Boston to secure more funding for his projects and encounters the beautiful Serena Shaw (Lawrence) on horseback. Their courtship may be the shortest in history. George says, "We should be married," and then the film cuts to their reception. Serena returns to Carolina with George and becomes an integral part of the operation, much to the dismay of Buchanan, who is half in love with George. Serena wins the respect of the workers with her ability to chop down trees and know exactly where to cut a tree so it falls safely with minimum waste. The clairvoyant, creepy Galloway, who never seems to change clothes, becomes a devoted follower of Serena's because he saw her in his visions as a child. This news doesn't seem to faze George much.
Serena juggles different subplots unsuccessfully. There is George's feud with the sheriff, George's homicidal tendencies, Serena's homicidal streak towards a local woman who bore George's illegitimate child, and George's obsession with killing a panther which would make Captain Ahab seem reasonable. Serena, who is seen as independent and strong, soon goes to pieces when she discovers that George knocked up another woman. It is amazing more men didn't, since before Serena's arrival this woman seemed to be the area's only female resident. How did Serena stay in the dark about this fact? Everyone else knew about it.
Serena is the stuff of melodrama, but it at least could have succeeded as a Depression-era soap opera. Maybe the film should have been a mini-series, which would have given it time to develop its characters and its subplots. The movie works overtime to resolve all of them, but in the end we are left dissatisfied. Serena starts out as romantic melodrama and ends as violent melodrama in just under two hours. It is ridiculously uneven, but the shots of the mist-covered mountainsides are beautiful if anything.
George travels to Boston to secure more funding for his projects and encounters the beautiful Serena Shaw (Lawrence) on horseback. Their courtship may be the shortest in history. George says, "We should be married," and then the film cuts to their reception. Serena returns to Carolina with George and becomes an integral part of the operation, much to the dismay of Buchanan, who is half in love with George. Serena wins the respect of the workers with her ability to chop down trees and know exactly where to cut a tree so it falls safely with minimum waste. The clairvoyant, creepy Galloway, who never seems to change clothes, becomes a devoted follower of Serena's because he saw her in his visions as a child. This news doesn't seem to faze George much.
Serena juggles different subplots unsuccessfully. There is George's feud with the sheriff, George's homicidal tendencies, Serena's homicidal streak towards a local woman who bore George's illegitimate child, and George's obsession with killing a panther which would make Captain Ahab seem reasonable. Serena, who is seen as independent and strong, soon goes to pieces when she discovers that George knocked up another woman. It is amazing more men didn't, since before Serena's arrival this woman seemed to be the area's only female resident. How did Serena stay in the dark about this fact? Everyone else knew about it.
Serena is the stuff of melodrama, but it at least could have succeeded as a Depression-era soap opera. Maybe the film should have been a mini-series, which would have given it time to develop its characters and its subplots. The movie works overtime to resolve all of them, but in the end we are left dissatisfied. Serena starts out as romantic melodrama and ends as violent melodrama in just under two hours. It is ridiculously uneven, but the shots of the mist-covered mountainsides are beautiful if anything.
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