So you have a depression-era drama directed by arthouse favorite Susanne Bier (whose "In A Better World" nabbed the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar in 2011), starring Jennifer Lawrence (megastar and Oscar winner) and Bradley Cooper (Oscar nominated twice) —what could possibly go wrong? While we haven’t yet seen the film, it says something that two years have passed since "Serena" wrapped production, and not a peep has been heard of it since. There have been no festival appearances, trailers or even many pictures, which seems odd given the talent involved. But suddenly, the movie is gearing up for a U.K. release in just a couple of months.
Stylist has debuted a new image from the movie, and we’re certainly surprised to see this sudden flurry of movement. The movie is based on the novel by Ron Rash and tells a tale of ambition and vengeance. Here’s the official synopsis:
North Carolina mountains at the end of the 1920s —George and Serena Pemberton, love-struck newly-weds, begin to build a timber empire. Serena soon proves herself to be equal to any man: overseeing loggers, hunting rattle-snakes, even saving a man’s life in the wilderness. With power and influence now in their hands, the Pembertons refuse to let anyone stand in the way of their inflated love and ambitions. However, once Serena discovers George’s hidden past and faces an unchangeable fate of her own, the Pemberton’s passionate marriage begins to unravel leading toward a dramatic reckoning.
Again, how could this go wrong? And while the film could turn out be good — you never know, right?— we’d wager if it had been quality, it wouldn’t have been sitting on a shelf this long.
"Serena" opens in the U.K. on October 24th via StudioCanal, with more European dates to follow this fall. Magnolia snapped up the U.S. rights for this movie over a year ago, but no release date has been set. And in case you really need to know, the movie runs 102 minutes long.
I heard Lawrence had to do a bunch of ADR. It couldn't have been easy for Bier to work around JenLaw's crazy schedule. We might see this one at LFF and probably New York for the North American bow. Expect it to be in the Oscar running.
Be prepared for a stink bomb. They filmed this in the spring of 2012. I was all hyped about it back then, but the fact that it's been sitting around all this time is almost always the sign of big problems. Weinstein didn't want to distribute it – they were shopping it around for distributors a year ago. I hope it isn't because JLaw's performance sucks, but that could be it, too much Russell direction, or over-direction, along with all the Y.A. films could have been the culprit. Bier is a fine director, but typically in her Danish films – the original "Brothers" with Connie Nielson was a wonderful film.
The book is really fantastic and the talent involved is indeed extraordinary. Yet again, watching a film sitting on a shelf that long is not encouraging at all. I'm still really curious to watch the final product. And yes, having read the book, I have to say that Jennifer Lawrence looks exactly as I imagined Serena while reading the book.
I thought the book was fantastic, and I think Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence should be good choices for those characters, but it's hard to stay optimistic about the movie given that it's been sitting around for so long and the lack of marketing/promotion. Still, if it somehow turns out to be as good as an adaptation of that book should be, that would be awesome.
None of Biers English language films have really worked, doubt this does either
Serena has been in post production for such a long time I hope it will be good.