Serena (2015)

[emjohnson03]

In Depression-era North Carolina, the future of George Pemberton's timber empire becomes complicated when he marries Serena.

 

 

This was done so many years ago but had yet to find a distributor,

 

I saw it onDemand the other night since well, I was bored and I love both Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence.

 

Oh boy was it bad. It was such a pretty film, the scenery, the costumes but that's about it.

 

Nothing about it made sense, Bradley Cooper tried an accent and it didn't work and the story just went from ok this is allright to outright ridiculous and not in a good way. Such a shame because this could have been amazing, especially with the two of them playing a husband and wife team.

 

I don't really blame Cooper and Lawrence as the material failed them. Now you know that just because they are two A-list actors doesn't make it a slam dunk.

[Spartan Girl]

I hated how they watered down the character of Serena from a ruthless ambitious formidable woman from to just another whiny Lifetime psycho.  The ending to the book was so much better.

[Wiendish Fitch]

I hated how they watered down the character of Serena from a ruthless ambitious formidable woman from to just another whiny Lifetime psycho.  The ending to the book was so much better.

 

Darn you, Spartan Girl, you beat me to the punch! :)

 

But chiming in, this movie was crap. Serena joins the ranks of the 2012 The Lorax as one of the most appallingly wretched, not-even-trying-to-grasp-the-point-of-the -source-material adaptations I've ever seen. I share in your assessment 100%.

 

For those who haven't read the book, let me fill you in on who Serena is: She is aloof, elegant, cold, calculating, feminine but, at the same time, disdainful conventional womanly behavior (chick doesn't have a shy or swoony bone in her body), one step ahead of everyone in the room, and is absolutely not to be trifled with. She is also described as tall, extremely slender, with high cheekbones. Imagine Lady MacBeth (to whom Serena has rightly been compared), with elements of Kathie from Out of the Past in the body of a Hitchcock blonde.

 

That is not who we get in the movie. This Serena banters and teases her husband adorably (Serena in the book is capable of banter, but of the cruel, cutting variety, and with people she doesn't like). Movie Serena greets the eagle with a girlish "hi" (Book Serena in the book would never, in a million lifetimes, ever stoop to saying "hi"). The last third of the movie, Movie Serena is prone to ugly crying and blubbering (if Book Serena cries, we are never privy to her doing it). Movie Serena gets drunk when she's depressed (Book Serena would sneer at such weak behavior).

Movie Serena dithers around like a tragic Tennessee Williams heroine before stupidly offing herself (Book Serena gets away with her crimes with barely a pang of remorse, at least until she's in her old age, when Baby Jacob, now a grown-up, murders her in an exquisitely poetic way).

 

Let me just say that I love Jennifer Lawrence, but even if I didn't, I'm fully aware that she is more talented and successful than I will ever be. I understand this, I've come to terms with it, it is fact.

 

However, that doesn't alter one whit the fact that she is completely wrong as Serena. Now, the blame goes primarily to the director and the screenwriter (a pox on both of them), but I maintain that, in spite of her talent, Lawrence is wrong for Serena. Aside from being too young and looking it (Serena in the book is 27, but, remember, being 27 in 1929 was completely different than what it is today), her Serena is too smiley, too girlish, too giggly. When she was with the eagle, there was none of the mystical quality of their bond in the book; for God's sake, I expected Movie Serena to baby talk the stupid bird ("Who's a pwetty birdy? Who wuvs you? Mama wuvs you!"). Lawrence is a damn good actress, but, again, you can tell she was too young and out of her depth. There's none of the icy sophistication that made Serena so compelling in the book. It doesn't help the direction is piss-poor; you don't get the sense that Serena outlived her family members, you sense that the worst thing that happened to her was that boys didn't like her at school. Again, I'm aware I have no right to say this, but Jessica Chastain would have made a magnificent Serena.

 

Please understand, I don't expect movie adaptations to be perfect mirror images of the books. That is unreasonable and a recipe for disaster. But just keep the overall spirit and theme of the book, that's all I ask. Gone Girl was an excellent adaptation, tight as a drum (it helps that Gillian Flynn wrote the screenplay, but no matter). The Lord of the Rings trilogy? Fine and dandy, in spite of the liberties. The 2005 The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe? I don't think C.S. Lewis would have many complaints. Gone with the Wind? Flawless, even at the expense of Scarlett's two other kids (and how many people care about them, anyway?)

 

But that brings me back to the main point: the screenwriter. Whoever it was, I doubt they even read Ron Rash's book. It's like they skimmed the blurb on the back, checked Wikipedia just in case, then went from there. I'm aware Susanne Bier spent ages editing this festering pile of a movie, but her efforts were in vain. There is no sense of time or place in the movie, we don't learn what life is like at the lumber mill, the national park plot line is forgotten halfway, and we know nothing of the characters or what makes them tick. 

 

Bradley Cooper is the mayonnaise of movie stars: blandly pleasant at best, but easily substituted with healthier, more flavorful alternatives (Mr. Fitch thinks Tom Hardy would have made a better George Pemberton, and I'm inclined to agree). What was that accent Cooper was aiming for? Southern? Boston? Canadian? Dude, if in doubt, forgo the accent! You have less to lose that way! By the way, anyone notice how, when Pemberton goes inside to confront Buchanan during that comically loud rainstorm, he isn't the least bit wet?

 

Speaking of accents, I normally love Toby Jones, but, bless his heart, the man cannot do a Southern accent to save his life, at least not for long. He seemed to switch from George Bush to Michael Caine in the twinkling of an eye. Same with Sean Harris's Campbell, who appeared to go Australian at some point (even though Harris is British, what's that all about?).

 

Poor Rachel, an important, sympathetic character with a wonderful arc and resolution in the book, is reduced to a nonentity with less than 10 lines to her name.

She's even denied her badass showdown with Galloway! Bull. Crap.

We don't even get the stage-setting knife fight in the beginning! Go to Hell, screenwriters.

 

I hope Ron Rash never sees this, for it would break his heart seeing his work defaced like this.

Edited March 9, 2015 by Wiendish Fitch

[ribboninthesky1]

 

Bradley Cooper is the mayonnaise of movie stars: blandly pleasant at best, but easily substituted with healthier, more flavorful alternatives

 

I've not seen the film, so no opinion on it.  However, I shall keep this description of Bradley Cooper close to my heart for the rest of my days.  

[Spartan Girl]

I did think that Jennifer Lawrence did an amazing job in the scene when Serena finds out she can't have any more children.

[MrsRafaelBarba]

The poster that called Will Tippin the Mayonaise of  Movie Stars, you made my day!

 

 

ROTFLMAO!

[Wiendish Fitch]

Bradley Cooper is the mayonnaise of movie stars: blandly pleasant at best, but easily substituted with healthier, more flavorful alternatives

I've not seen the film, so no opinion on it.  However, I shall keep this description of Bradley Cooper close to my heart for the rest of my days.

 

 

 

The poster that called Will Tippin the Mayonaise of  Movie Stars, you made my day!

 

 

 

Aw, shucks, ribboninthesky1 and MrsRafaelBarba!

 

*blushes and shuffles feet in a modest and hopefully endearing way*

[methodwriter85]

So they pretty much just swept this movie under the rug with limited/VOD release because they didn't want to contradict the whole "J-Law is the best movie star who can act ANYTHING" deal, right?

[Dejana]

So they pretty much just swept this movie under the rug with limited/VOD release because they didn't want to contradict the whole "J-Law is the best movie star who can act ANYTHING" deal, right?

 

Studios thought it was an incoherent mess:

 

After wrapping the filming in 2012, Bier took 18 more months in post-production to complete a cut of the film. One Hollywood Reporter source suggested this delay was due in part to her feeling tremendous pressure in light of the critical success of Silver Linings Playbook, which Serena would be following up — or, at least, that was the plan. Instead, the movie languished, then went notoriously AWOL. It didn’t hit the festival circuit until late 2014, premiering with a conspicuous lack of excitement at the London Film Festival. The film subsequently bombed in the U.K. It’s been met with generally tepid reviews everywhere — Variety’s Guy Lodge memorably wrote that it “boasts neither a narrative impetus nor a perceptible objective” — and it had a lot of trouble attracting a U.S. distributor. This might be a good time to remind you: This is a movie that stars Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper.

 

CAA, which represents Cooper, Lawrence, Bier, and the film, continued to screen it for American distributors. Unpromisingly, Bier screened three different cuts to distributors on three different occasions, essentially letting them take their pick. Even more unpromisingly, they all passed. One buyer told The Hollywood Reporter after a screening that the movie “made no sense.” Others apparently avoided it precisely due to a fear that, in the light of the subsequent high-wattage collaborations between the film’s stars, Serena would seem especially drab.

 

 

Watch there be a documentary about the movie that goes on to win an Oscar or something.

Edited March 13, 2015 by Dejana

[Wiendish Fitch]

Serena has finally been officially released in theaters, and is currently at 20% on Rotten Tomatoes. Anyone else seen this stinker yet and care to comment?

Edited March 28, 2015 by Wiendish Fitch