A-list stars fail to ignite sparks in ‘Serena’
Print Edition
THE arithmetic on “Serena” is fascinating. Two of the biggest movie stars in the world plus an Oscar-winning director and a best-selling novel somehow add up to a forgettable, under-the-radar video-on-demand release.
But movies work by strange, illogical mathematics. Despite its prestigious pedigree, “Serena,” starring Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, is likely to be remembered as another example of the curious, inexplicable science of moviemaking.
The film has long been a subject of intrigue since it was shot in 2012 and more-or-less hidden under a rock since.
The light of day finally crashing down in “Serena” reveals not so much the disaster one might expect, but a well-intended, handsomely shot but altogether unsuccessful drama. It comes as almost a disappointment. After all this time, one almost hopes for a Titanic-sized catastrophe, not merely a wayward mediocrity.
“Serena,” directed by the Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier (“In a Better World”), is based on Ron Rash’s 2008 novel about a Depression-era timber baron named George Pemberton (Cooper) who’s immediately infatuated by a woman with a dark past, Serena (Lawrence).
She’s “practically an aboriginal,” a woman hisses of Serena, explaining that her family died tragically in a fire when she was 12. But Pemberton’s gaze is fixed on her, riding on horseback.
He rides to her and proposes. They promptly marry and return to his North Carolina land, a rugged outpost of lumberjacks and steam locomotives where the threat of conservationism lurks. That dreaded villain, the National Park system, is coming.
Serena is “a pistol,” as her husband says, quickly making her presence felt around Pemberton’s business, much to the disgruntlement of his right-hand man, Buchanan (David Dencik).
The story that doesn’t come through in “Serena” is probably about the impossibility of a relationship divorcing itself from the past. But that version of “Serena” never comes through with any force or feeling because of the imprecise script by Christopher Kyle; Cooper’s bland, inscrutable performance and the film’s uncertain pacing.
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