Review: Serena
One of the more arresting images in the handsomely mounted Serena arrives an hour into the film. Serena Pemberton (Jennifer Lawrence) is in the process of losing her baby, and her husband George (Bradley Cooper) is giving blood to replenish her hemorrhaged supply. They lie side by side, connected by tubes, bound by blood, destinies twined. It's a grand and symbolic image, informed by what's taken place before it, yet more effective when taken out of context.
Serena is a peculiar film, famously on the shelf since 2012 (Lawrence and Cooper worked on the film between Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle). Many of its components prevent it from being a bad film, but those same components don't add up to a very good one either. There's a relentless weight to this film, akin to a boot's heel grinding into your neck or your entire body being pulled into quicksand. It flickers when it should rage, and remains steadfast when it should go off the rails. At no point is it believable or fully invested in the act of making sense.
The year is 1929, the place the North Carolina mountains. The crash has the banks on edge, and the region is torn between preserving its land as a national park or clearing the forests for timber. George, the owner of Pemberton Lumber Co., is very much in support of the latter, arguing the timber business means job opportunities for the people, who are just this side of the poverty line. George also knows that the government would need his land for their park, and he's prepared to give it to them...provided the price is right. Either way, it seems to be a win-win for him despite the inherent dangers of his logging business and the shakiness of his current financial situation.
The presence of his beautiful and pragmatic bride Serena unsettles his men, particularly his business partner Buchanan (David Dencik), who feels his position threatened by the power accorded to Serena by George. Having been raised on a timber camp, Serena is quick to offer suggestions whether it be importing an eagle to deal with the snakes that keep injuring the men, or the exact point where the axe should hit the tree. George believes her to be "equal to any man here," and Serena herself throws down the gauntlet to Buchanan: "I didn't come to Carolina to do needlepoint." From here on out, Serena aspires to be a hybrid of The Great Gatsby and Macbeth, with George aspiring to greater heights and the increasingly possessive Serena proving herself a formidable figure who will do anything to protect her husband and their burgeoning empire.
Serena would have made fine material for George Stevens or Howard Hawks to direct, either one more than capable of melding the doomed romance and greedy ambitions into a potent and compelling brew. There are two scenes - Serena's reaction to learning she can never have children, and the chilling confrontation that assures mutual destruction for the couple - that, when viewed apart from the rest of the film, would suggest that sort of dark romantic noir. Yet for all the heavyhanded portent and talk of hunting panthers, taming eagles, and confronting bears, the film has no sense of the primal forces that gather around George and Serena. Director Susanne Bier and screenwriter Christopher Kyle do a fairly competent job of adapting Ron Rash's 2008 novel, but Serena feels detached from itself. The film as a whole doesn't work, and its individual parts shrivel under closer scrutiny.
Cooper has his moments though he never fully convinces, but Lawrence is chilling as the steely femme fatale whose toughness and determination both swagger and slither.
Serena
Directed by: Susanne Bier
Written by: Christopher Kyle; adapted from Ron Rash's novel
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Rhys Ifans, Toby Jones, Sam Reid, Sean Harris, Kim Bodnia, Ana Ularu, David Dencik
