Synopsis
North Carolina mountains at the end of the 1920s – George and Serena Pemberton, love-struck newly-weds, begin to build a timber empire. Serena soon proves herself to be equal to any man: overseeing loggers, hunting rattle-snakes, even saving a man’s life in the wilderness. With power and influence now in their hands, the Pembertons refuse to let anyone stand in the way of their inflated love and ambitions. However, once Serena discovers George’s hidden past and faces an unchangeable fate of her own, the Pemberton’s passionate marriage begins to unravel leading toward a dramatic reckoning.
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Cast
- Jennifer LawrenceSerena Pemberton
- Bradley CooperGeorge Pemberton
- Rhys IfansGalloway
- Toby JonesSheriff McDowell
- Blake RitsonLowenstein
- Sean HarrisCampbell
- Sam ReidVaughn
- Charity WakefieldAgatha
- Douglas HodgeHorace Kephart
- Kim BodniaAbe Hermann
Recommendations
- 63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
A film that should be shamelessly soaked in passion and thrusting erotic delirium is instead posed and prettified, to the point where “camp” comes to mean more than the place where lumberjacks work – it’s also the movie’s defining vibe. - 60
Variety
An arrestingly nihilistic Depression melodrama, marked by courageous performances and exquisite production values... The result is both problematic and fascinating, an unsympathetic spiral of human tragedy that plays a little like a hand-me-down folk ballad put to film. - 50
New York Magazine (Vulture)
This is a film full of unremarkable compromises — the kind that result in a bland film rather than a bad one. - 50
Movie Nation
Whatever Ron Rash’s novel had to offer, Bier has rendered it into something soapy, with everything compelling about it washed out. - 40
Empire
Commercially it looks a disaster. Artistically, if very far from a triumph, it’s interesting, almost held together by its charismatic stars. - 40
Time Out London
We don’t invest anything in either character, and with barely any tension, Serena grabs neither head nor heart. - 40
The Hollywood Reporter
It is difficult to believe a single word of it, still less to care about these relentlessly selfish and short-sighted characters. - 40
The Dissolve
Serena is quite bad, as it happens, but until it goes absolutely haywire in the final act, the biggest problem is that it’s all bones and no flesh, so busy combining all the structural elements that go into an award-winner that it has no personality of its own.
