George Pemberton (Bradley Cooper) runs a timber business in 1930s Carolina. He marries Serena (Jennifer Lawrence), a Colorado beauty with a tragic past and nose for business. Things go south when George's partner Buchanan (David Dencik) plans to reveal he's been bribing local officials. Serena goads George into killing Buchanan, initiating a tragic series of killings, infidelity and finagling.
Based on a Ron Rash novel, Serena is a hopeless muddle. Director Susanne Bier inundates us with high-blown silliness, from the overdone blue-scale photography to the hoary plot contrivances. This is the kind of movie where George tells Serena they'll marry at their first meeting. She laughs, then we cut to their marriage! Similarly, Buchanan's stupid enough to go hunting with George moments after informing his boss of his plans to rat him out.
Bier plays these contrivances absolutely straight, along with miscarriages, razor murders, self-immolation and other gruesome sights. There's Serena herself, a film noir femme plopped into a Merchant-Ivory world. Or a violent hillbilly (Rhys Ifans) who pledges loyalty to Serena after losing his hand. We long for a breath of humor, some self-awareness amidst the silliness. Instead, there's Serena waggling a dead snake before clapping lumberjacks, treated as a triumph.
For the opening hour, Bier alternates business and boinking, Serena proving adept in the boardroom as the boudoir. There's potential as we wait for something to happen; when it does though, things go off the rails. Serena transforms from tough cookie to psychopath, orchestrating multiple murders. George frets over investments in Brazil while tracking an elusive puma, a thematic thread better-suited for the novel. Deadening literalness kills Serena like many other book adaptations.
Bradley Cooper emerges unscathed, his low-key intensity effective. But Jennifer Lawrence is woefully miscast. Unworldly in platinum hair and cherry lips, she alternates listless line readings with swinish shrieks of anger. In fairness, even Meryl Streep couldn't sell dialog like "I have your child inside of me" and "They need to know that it was a woman who tamed the eagle." Supporting players offer little help: Rhys Ifans mumbles inscrutably, Toby Jones' accent slips every other line.
Serena forfeits our interest long before its mangled denouement. It's such a mess it's hard to say if Rash's novel could have been better-handled. Certainly a more skilled director could have made a less painful experience.