[Film review] Serena: Dead wood

Relationship horror as a genre gained traction with Revolutionary Road (2008) and Blue Valentine (2010) showing that marriages don’t necessarily mean happily ever after. The format goes: Love’s in the air in the first half, and things fall apart in the second.

Academy Award-winning director Susanne Bier’s film, Serena, however, is a dull, unmoving addition to the genre. It explains why the film, wrapped up since 2012, has struggled to get a US release despite the presence of two stars and bankable actors in Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper, who together have delivered hits such as Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle.

Adapted from Ron Rash’s 2008 novel of the same name set in the Depression-era America, the film focuses on the newlywed couple, George Pemberton (Cooper) and his wife, Serena (Lawrence). Ambitious at work and passionate in bed, they want to expand their timber-business empire from Smokey Mountains in North Carolina to Brazil.

Initially, everything is hunky-dory as Serena asserts her presence in the man’s world, demonstrating that she can wield an axe and tame an eagle and not come across as a tomboy. It doesn’t take long before George’s right-hand man Buchanan (David Dencik), who may be also harbours feelings for George, envious of Serena’s increasing control, betrays his friend by spilling the beans on George’s financial wrongdoings to the local sheriff (Toby Jones). Serena’s command is to pack him off. George obeys.

Serena sticks to the relationship horror format as cracks begin to appear in the Pembertons’ idyllic world in the second half when Serena has a miscarriage. Devastated over the loss, Serena is initially forlorn and rather abruptly mentally unstable. Reason? Again a child, in this case George’s illegitimate son fathered with Rachel Harmon (Ana Ularu), a cook at his plantation. She tries to kill mother and child with the help of Galloway (Rhys Ifans), whose job here is to look mysterious.

Ardent nature lovers will say this is justice served for when you chop off trees mercilessly (Bier shows the butchered landscape as the couple drive down) and hunt animals. But Serena and George’s deteriorating relationship here seems like a result of over-reliance on passion to sustain a marriage, and the absence of a child.

Serena’s biggest hurdle is that Bier is never able to draw viewers to her characters, which are often as grey as the film’s landscape. Even Ana who initially seemed spotless is shown giving a jarring menacing look. There is little to justify what suddenly motivates the two leads to stoop low. It doesn’t help that we know little about the film’s female protagonist other than that she has a tragic past which made her wary of love.

With blond curls and natural poise, Lawrence is in fine form as the self-destructive siren. She makes Serena bold, vicious, the sorts you don’t want to mess with. Cooper isn’t as compelling here but that’s also to do with how George is macho one minute and suddenly his wife’s pet the other. Together, they have an intense chemistry but it isn’t enough to salvage the film from unravelling much like the Pembertons’ life.