Within the opening minutes of Serena, director Susanne Bier warns us about what’s to come over the next two hours. While working on the land in which he runs his lumber empire, George Pemberton (Bradley Cooper) witnesses a series of events in which a loose wire snaps, causing the death of one man and the injuring of another, which in turn risks a train potentially going off the rails or, even worse, smashing into another train and killing the injured man. Luckily, Permberton is able to stop the train before it causes a larger incident, yet Cooper and co-star Jennifer Lawrence, despite their considerable chemistry, aren’t able to stop the film itself from becoming a full-blown train wreck.
Adapted from Ron Rash’s 2008 novel of the same name, Serena joins Pemberton as he’s trying to keep his struggling North Carolina business from going under following the recent Depression. While in the city to negotiate a loan in order to do so, he meets the troubled Serena Shaw (Lawrence), the only survivor of a fire at her family’s timber camp years earlier. After Pemberton simply rides up to Shaw on a horse and suggests they get married, the two quickly wed and return to Pemberton’s land.
Upon arriving, Shaw becomes a partner in her husband’s business, much to the chagrin of Pemberton’s right-hand-man Buchanan (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’s David Dencik), who may be harboring romantic tendencies toward his boss. Buchanan’s jealousy is only one problem caused by Shaw’s newfound position in both Pemberton’s business and life—he must also face jealousy over a baby he fathered with a nearby woman (Ana Ularu), as well as difficulties in trying to keep the local sheriff (Toby Jones) from taking over his land and transforming the whole area into a national park.
More than the absurd machinations of plot or the rekindling of the dynamic between its two leads, history will likely remember Serena for the many struggles it took to complete. Filmed after Cooper and Lawrence’s first collaboration on Silver Lining’s Playbook (2012) and before their Oscar nominated American Hustle (2013), Serena required 18 months of editing, shifting hands between distributors after years of languishing in purgatory without seeing the light of day. What remains in 2015 is a strangely edited, weirdly paced and increasingly odd story that feels so removed from its origins it’s practically absent of any real purpose.