Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		3.0
Overall		2.5

Serena Blu-ray Movie Review

Who? What? Where?

Reviewed by Michael Reuben June 11, 2015

Serena should be much better than the meandering affair that took almost three years to reach U.S. screens after principal photography wrapped in the Czech Republic in 2012. The script was adapted from a bestselling novel by Ron Rash. The director was Susanne Bier, whose In a Better World won the 2011 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film and whose searing 2004 Brothers was remade in English in 2009. The cast featured the lucky chemistry of Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence in their third pairing (after Silver Linings Playbook and just before American Hustle), and once again they were playing psychologically fractured characters with a complex relationship. The producers included Todd Wagner and Mark Cuban, the owners of 2929 Productions, Magnolia Pictures and the Landmark Theater Chain.

If you read the extensive press notes that Magnolia assembled for Serena's U.S. theatrical release in March 2015, it's clear that everyone involved was passionate about the project and had definite and interesting ideas about what the film could be. Unfortunately, few of those ideas made it to the screen. Much of the blame rests with the screen adaptation written by Christopher Kyle, which radically alters the novel's plot, but Kyle does not bear sole responsibility. Although he was handpicked for the job, director Bier had substantial input after she replaced the original director, Darren Aronofsky. The producers also appear to have played an active role, and the deleted scenes suggest a heavy hand in the editing room. It's almost as if everyone involved became so familiar with the story that they began to speak in code, forgetting that most of the audience would not share their familiarity and would need to be led by the hand through a coherent narrative with a beginning, middle and end.

As Kyle notes in the disc's extras, Serena strongly echoes both Macbeth and Medea. But imagine if someone were to "adapt" Shakespeare's Macbeth by omitting crucial scenes and replacing them with others. Instead of meeting with the witches, Macbeth would sit around a campfire with his soldiers and describe the encounters in passing. Instead of Lady Macbeth persuading her husband to kill the King, she'd chat with her servants, and after the murder she and her husband would exchange just a few words. Banquo's ghost wouldn't appear at dinner to upset Macbeth, but a few of the dinner guests would mention the disturbance during lengthy scenes of business at court. And Lady Macbeth would never be seen sleepwalking; at most, her maid might mention that she's been behaving oddly. The same essential information would be conveyed as in Shakespeare's play, but it wouldn't have much impact.

Serena constantly leaves you with the feeling that important events are being skipped over, and the film is running to catch up. And just as it seems about to draw even with the story it's trying to tell, the focus shifts to something else.

Serena is set in 1929 just after the stock market crash. George Pemberton (Cooper) has invested in a large tract of land in the Smoky Mountains region of North Carolina, where he is harvesting the trees for lumber. He also owns undeveloped timberland in Brazil. Pemberton could easily afford these purchases before the crash, but his financial position is now precarious.

Pemberton comes from Boston society, where he feels ill at ease, preferring life in the wilderness. We don't really know this from Cooper's portrayal, but we are supposed to infer it from a few brief scenes of his return home, where he obtains further bank credit (at great cost), and from many scenes where he urges a local tracker and guide, Galloway (Rhys Ifans), to find him a panther to shoot, like some Hemingway hero. Indeed, inference is the primary means by which Serena portrays its main characters. In the case of Pemberton, we're supposed to deduce who he is from his interactions with Galloway, the tracker; with his business partner; Buchanan (David Dencik), who may or may not want to be more than business partners; with Sheriff McDowell (Toby Jones), who leads the local conservation movement and suspects Pemberton of paying off politicians to ensure that no one interferes with his logging rights; with Rachel (Ana Ularu), the camp employee whom Pemberton seduces (off camera); and, of course, with Serena, whom he weds.

Serena (Lawrence) remains as ill-defined as Pemberton, which is especially troubling for a title character. Pemberton proposes to her almost immediately upon meeting her in Boston, and the reason for his sudden impulse isn't obvious, other than the fact that she looks like Jennifer Lawrence, is described by Pemberton's sister as "practically an aborigine" and is the sole survivor of a Colorado logging family that perished in a blaze (the tale itself should be a red flag). When Pemberton returns to North Carolina with his new bride, she unsettles everyone and everything, but the filmmakers can't decide on a direction. Is this a story about a male-dominated culture's inability to accept a strong woman (which might make it a companion piece to Far from the Madding Crowd)? Is it a backwoods film noir about a weak-willed sap manipulated by a femme fatale? A tale of an ambitious man nudged toward evil by an equally ambitious wife (as in Macbeth)? A wife who sacrificed all for a husband only to be betrayed (like Medea)? Two civilized people who succumb to the savagery of the wilderness (as in Heart of Darkness)? Serena flirts with all of these possibilities but embraces none of them, often turning aside for scenes of questionable relevance, such as the sequence where Serena trains an eagle to hunt snakes. Meanwhile, crucial points like her odd connection to Galloway are given short shrift.

By the end, much blood has been spilled in ways that are obviously meant to feel momentous and symbolic. Instead, they're just confusing, as if whole chunks of plot have been omitted. Bier may have aspired to tell the story from multiple points of view and to let the audience judge the characters for themselves, but to do that in her languorous, detached style, you need a miniseries, not a single 109-minute film. If you want the audience to decide, first they have to care, and the reaction Serena is most likely to provoke is a compliment on the scenery.

Serena Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Serena was shot on the Red Epic by Morten Søborg, who is director Biers's usual cinematographer. Color grading and post-production were completed on a digital intermediate, from which Magnolia Home Entertainment's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray was presumably sourced. Whatever Serena's flaws as filmed entertainment, its production design, costumes and other technical features are superb, and the Blu-ray highlights these aspects of the film. Clear, sharp, detailed and colorful, the image brings both the beauty of the natural surroundings, and the contrasting devastation wrought by Pemberton's lumber operations, to the home video screen in all their glory. Details of period costumes, makeup, hair styles, decor and wilderness are always readily visible, and blacks are solid and deep. Earth tones predominate, except for the blues of night and early morning and a few bold colors in Serena's wardrobe.

Magnolia has placed Serena on a BD-50, but it has left much of the space unused, so that the film achieves an average bitrate of only 22.99 Mbps. This is adequate for digitally originated material, and artifacts were not an issue.

Serena Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Serena's 5.1 soundtrack has been encoded in lossless DTS-HA MA, and it's an impressive affair. Sounds of nature and of the activity in Pemberton's logging operation are layered into the mix all around, and wide dynamic range reproduces the sense of a huge tree falling from the sharp crack of the trunk being cut to the deep thud of its landing on the ground. Hunters' gunshots reverberate, horses' hooves beat and steam machinery hisses. Dialogue is generally clear, even with the backwoods accent adopted by Rhys Ifans as Galloway, and the sweeping orchestral score by Johan Söderqvist (Kon-Tiki) adds scale to the entire film. (The score has some of the deepest bass extension on the soundtrack.)

Serena Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 2.39:1; 18:51): The fourteen scenes are not separately listed or selectable. Many of them fill in the story of Rachel, including major developments omitted from the final cut, and one scene extends the story of a minor character, Dr. Chaney (Conleth Hill).



• The Making of Serena: The Story, Direction & Characters (1080p; 1.78:1; 18:23): Lawrence, Cooper, Ifans, Ularu, Dencik, Bier, Kyle and others discuss the characters and the place of each one in the story.



• Exploring the Production Design and Time Period (1080p; 1.78:1; 9:41): Production designer Richard Bridgland describes his research in the Appalachians and the challenge of recreating 1929 America in the Czech Republic. He is joined by executive producer Peter McAleese, costume designer Signe Sejlund, writer Kyle, director Bier and actor Cooper.



• Following the Screenwriting: Comparing the Film and the Novel (1080p; 1.78:1; 5:08): Kyle discusses his adaptation, which, he says, focused on the love story between Pemberton and Serena. It should be noted that Kyle was interviewed on the film's set, which means he had not yet seen the film's final cut.



• Breaking Down the Set: Kingsport Tanners, Train Station & Main Street (1080p; 1.78:1; 4:44): Bridgland tours the set after it has been transformed into the town where the film reaches its dramatic climax.



• Also from Magnolia Home Entertainment: The disc includes trailers for Kill Me Three Times, The Deadlands and Skin Trade, as well as promos for the Chideo web service and AXS TV. These also play at startup, where they can be skipped with the chapter forward button.



• BD-Live: As of this writing, attempting to access BD-Live gave the message "Check back later for updates".

Serena Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Serena has first-rate production values and an interesting cast, and the Blu-ray is technically superior. If that is enough for you, then by all means acquire it. If you care about a coherent story that's well told, skip it.