**What is it? **The latest Hollywood blockbuster to co-star Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence, Serena is a dark romance set in the mountainous wilderness of 1920s North Carolina. Directed by Danish filmmaker Susanne Bier, who won the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar in 2011, it’s based on a book by bestselling author Ron Rash who was himself brought up in the charmingly named Boiling Springs, North Carolina, where the film is set.
What happens, in a Tweet? George and Serena Pemberton are lovers and timber barons. He wants to shoot a panther, she wants to have his son. Things turn Lady Macbeth.
** Who’s in it? ** After making one of the great romances of recent times in Silver Linings Playbook, Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence are lovers once again. His performance is OK but hers is absolutely amazing. ‘She is beautiful, wounded, mad for trees,’ as one character says. ‘It’s a pity you don’t stand a chance with her.’
Jennifer does scary and crazed very, very well and this is no exception; one scene in which she’s waving goodbye in her nightie in the mud sticks in the mind. An honourable mention must also go to Rhys Ifans, who’s brilliantly intense as a murderous lumberjack of little words.
Any standout scenes? There’s a thrilling axe-ident, an excellent runaway love-train sequence, and it still has a really unexpected surprise – one for the cat-lovers – at the very end!
What about the… There’s a lot of surprisingly un-titillating sex scenes in this movie, including one awkward moment of Bradley fingering Jennifer in the tub. But if you’ve ever wondered what bath-time is like with Bradley Cooper, well, now you know.
READ MORE: Rosamund Pike: ‘Gone Girl Turned My Body Into A Chemistry Lab’
** What does the director say?** ‘It is a love story that is balancing on the edge of where you want love to exist and yet you’re fearfully aware of its danger, and I think that’s fascinating.’
**What are we saying? ** Make no mistake, Serena is not a brilliant movie, but it has a brilliant star. When Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence fall in love on the silver screen it can end very well or very badly. On this occasion it’s love at first sight – his first words to her are: ‘I think we should be married’ – and it’s obvious from the start that we’re not in for a happily-ever-after.
If you like your love stories to end messily – which we do – well, this one is right up there with Gone Girl and Maps to the Stars.
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Follow Dean on Twitter @DeanKissick
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.