Serena (2014)
Storyline
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.
Directors
Writers
Cast
Trailer
Reviews
63
A film that should be shamelessly soaked in passion and thrusting erotic delirium is instead posed and prettified, to the point where “camp” comes to mean more than the place where lumberjacks work – it’s also the movie’s defining vibe.
60
An arrestingly nihilistic Depression melodrama, marked by courageous performances and exquisite production values... The result is both problematic and fascinating, an unsympathetic spiral of human tragedy that plays a little like a hand-me-down folk ballad put to film.
50
This is a film full of unremarkable compromises — the kind that result in a bland film rather than a bad one.
50
Whatever Ron Rash’s novel had to offer, Bier has rendered it into something soapy, with everything compelling about it washed out.
40
Empire
Commercially it looks a disaster. Artistically, if very far from a triumph, it’s interesting, almost held together by its charismatic stars.
