Serena (2014)

Best movie of this year hands down!

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

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.

Interesting story. Beautiful shots of nature. A look at how the inland of US was build. Details in scenography. Real tensions between characters. Etc.Unfortunately this movie is just too good to be so good right down to its end. I simply breaks down in the finale. Sadly, there is this switch from high quality to a somewhat lower level of movie-making for the last 20 minutes or soAnd of course there is the problem of Bradley Cooper- the performer with capabilities adequate for TV chopping channel, who somehow became an successful actor. He plays the main male character, annoying the viewers with his presence. What a bummer this is

To be honest I am only writing this review because the film has had such a negative reception. I want to make a few things clear.This film rather than following the Hollywood formula is more true to life in the sense that some European films have been. Life isn't always exciting, sometimes it can be brooding rather than fast paced with flashy cars and "cool" props being used to polish up perception.I would classify this as historical fiction in the sense that most films with a historical setting have a lot of flash and posturing. This film offers a view of the less glamorous times during the depression. It gives you a glimpse of the issues through the plot rather than show you first hand. Some elements are true to Hollywood such as perfectly clean main characters but conceptually this film seems like a simple slice of life.One person said you ended up not liking anyone. I think that's the entire point of the film. It's dark, brooding, and it has things to say about the nature of people and life without offering the flash and allure of a visually stunning or fun filled film. Many can't understand the setting (the depression) and might not understand the hard choices people made between survival and dreams which still relates to current life in many ways.I found the plot believable and think it's a good film for the deeper thinkers and realistic story lovers. Although poetic, it substitutes flash for substance. Instead of looking for something action packed or something to cuddle up with just accept it for what it is. It's unlikely to be pleasant for the light hearted.

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.