The new Depression-era drama Serena represents that most alluring and treacherous of film undertakings: a story that simultaneously promises a gritty, truthful slice of this country's "Robber Baron" past, a dramatic spin on the motto "Behind every great fortune lies a great crime," while viewing it ominously through the distorting lens of a tale of star-crossed lovers.
Bradley Cooper is George Pemberton, a wealthy guy used to getting his own way, whose command of a vast North Carolina timber empire is jeopardized when his headstrong young bride, Serena (Jennifer Lawrence), tries to take it over after discovering that she can't bear him children. Depending on a star-chemistry nurtured during their collaborations on Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle, Serena, with Susanne Bier directing a script based on American author Ron Rash's 2008 novel, superficially mimics previous big-screen mini-epics such as Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood and the Robert Altman gem McCabe and Mrs. Miller. In all three films, two strong egos engage in a life-and-death struggle against the backdrop of a lawless frontier. In each of these, too, humans fight to command and not be crushed by an industrial beast spewing forth motorcars, trains and earth-raping machinery.
While their carnal chemistry clicks, Cooper and Lawrence are less convincing as human predators. One of the movie's odd motifs, clearly a theme badly translated from the book, concerns the couple's determination to shoot a local predator, the Carolina panther.
"You find me an honest-to-goodness panther, and I'll give a 20-dollar gold piece."
"It will probably have been touched by the devil."
The production's somewhat troubled backstory is, in this case, revealing. The movie was originally scheduled to be directed by Darren Aronofsky, with the title role played by Angelina Jolie. The Bier-Cooper-Lawrence version is North Carolina as reimagined in the Czech Republic nearly three years ago. Editing alone consumed 18 months, and may partially explain why the resulting film feels so strangely bloodless for a tale where much fake blood sloshes with, at times, Bonnie and Clyde-like abandon.
In a large supporting cast, the one player who stands out is the diminutive Toby Jones as a suspicious local sheriff. Jones was previously best-known for his comic triumph as an impetuous Truman Capote in the In Cold Blood-based drama Infamous .
In There Will Be Blood, star Daniel Day-Lewis completely dominates a similarly barren frontier landscape, in the process outlasting an equally duplicitous foe, a slippery young preacher (Paul Dano). After nearly three hours, we are thoroughly convinced that this great country we so love and hate could indeed have been the product of such treacherous men. Cooper and Lawrence merely feel like actors lost in a far-less-convincing costume drama, whose claim on our emotions relies mostly on an overheated script.
"Our love began the day we met, nothing that happened before exists!"
Opens Friday at Landmark's Embarcadero Center Cinema in San Francisco, and Shattuck Cinemas in Berkeley.