Great Film overall

Good concept, poorly executed.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

So soon after the Silver Linings Playbook, you would have thought the teaming up of Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence would hit pay dirt at the box office.Set in 1929 Great Smoky Mountains in Carolina after the Wall Street Crash. George Pemberton (Bradley Cooper) and his business partner try to keep their logging company afloat. The bank have taken his vast lands in Brazil as collateral. The local Sheriff (Toby Jones) and his associates want to buy up his land and turn it into parkland. Pemberton quickly falls in love with glamorous Serena (Jennifer Lawrence) and marries her. Serena has an aptitude for business and to pus George to the edge with amoral means, this means murder as both strive to be successful. However a child that George has had with another woman tips Serena over the edge.The film is rather inert, the story has a tragic tinged moodiness but never really gets going. A cast full of British actors tells you that it was shot somewhere in eastern Europe. Both Cooper and Lawrence feel ill at ease with their characters.Director Susanne Bier has made a misfire yet atoned for this by directing the wonderful spy thriller for BBC television, The Night Manager.

Serena is Hollywood at it's best. It doesn't disappoint from beginning to end. It's easy to follow, visually stunning and ends up being so suspenseful I was on the edge of my seat paralyzed and shaken up considering what could, would and did occur. Jennifer Lawrence makes me want to give her a kiss, however in Serena is it a kiss of death? She plays this complicated 1929 beauty with haunting reality. Bradly Cooper plays his part perfectly. He's a powerful presence whenever on screen. This guy is one of the best leading men around. He's a modern day Paul Newman, which brings to mind how this movie is much like big movies of Hollywood's "golden age." Movies with great actors starring in big movies I'd anticipate seeing at weekly outings to the "show." Seldom disappointed with what I experienced on the big screen. Serena is a movie of that caliber. My big screen is in the comfort of my home,Serena miraculously streamed. With a high quality, carefully crafted movie like Serena I am perhaps more satisfied with the movie's entertainment experience than back in the old days.

I have not read the book, and I see that most of the naysayers have. To me, knowing nothing about the book, this was a well-made film and the acting quite good, relative to some of the movies I've seen of late... I did find the "moral" a bit hard to swallow. Something like "barren women are doomed to misery". Seriously, Serena has a miscarriage and her life begins to unravel until finally she is driven crazy by the fact that her husband fathered another woman's child. The woman had been working at the timber company delivering meals with "extras" to the cabin where the owner of the company stayed before he met Serena, who stole his heart and became his wife. I enjoyed gaining some insight into how these timber camps worked in earlier times in North Carolina. The nature was beautiful and the corruption depicted and power struggles over land seemed pretty realistic. Definitely worth sitting through for the visuals alone. I might even watch this one again because of the excellent cinematography.

With Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence in this film, I am sure folks immediately thought of their lovely romance in "Silver Linings Playbook"--and that's natural. However, when people saw that this was NOT a romantic film but a very, very grim and slow film, I am sure that alone turned off many fans. Regardless, folks were sure turned off and this went on to be one of the biggest money-losing films of the year. Despite this, is the film any good?Well, yes and no. I'd say yes in that there are some very nice performances==particularly by Jennifer Lawrence. While she plays a thoroughly unlikable lady, she is able to convey a lot of emotions without actually saying anything. I was very impressed by her. As for Bradley Cooper....well, his character wasn't very interesting. The film also has some lovely location shots. What I didn't like, was that the film was too stark, too quiet and too god-awful depressing. Additionally, and this is a more minor quibble, but I HATE how in the close-up shots the camera NEVER remains still. I am sure some folks think it makes the film artsy, but on the big screen it probably induced nausea.The story itself is about greed, corruption and amorality--themes that made me think of "There Will Be Blood", though without the larger than life leading performance. The Pembertons (Lawrence and Cooper) marry and move to the area which is now the Great Smokey National Park during the early Depression. Their goals are to eventually earn enough for a huge spread in Brazil--and both seem willing to abandon morality and decency to do it. However, Mrs. Pemberton is a lot like Lady Macbeth--the vicious woman pushing her husband to do ANYTHING to earn this fortunate. But when Mrs. Pemberton realizes that a woman in town with a small child is Mr. Pemberton's, this same vicious and amoral energy is about to be unleashed on the husband, child and old mistress.This is a slow and unpleasant film...I'll admit this readily. However, I don't think overall that it's a bad film--even if it is a movie practically overflowing with nastiness! I see it as a film that STILL has an interesting story that could have certainly been much better. Giving the story some energy, some life would have greatly improved it. As it is, I just can't see most folks being very willing to watch this sort of unpleasantness.