So soon after the Silver Linings Playbook, you would have thought the teaming up of Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence would hit pay dirt at the box office.Set in 1929 Great Smoky Mountains in Carolina after the Wall Street Crash. George Pemberton (Bradley Cooper) and his business partner try to keep their logging company afloat. The bank have taken his vast lands in Brazil as collateral. The local Sheriff (Toby Jones) and his associates want to buy up his land and turn it into parkland. Pemberton quickly falls in love with glamorous Serena (Jennifer Lawrence) and marries her. Serena has an aptitude for business and to pus George to the edge with amoral means, this means murder as both strive to be successful. However a child that George has had with another woman tips Serena over the edge.The film is rather inert, the story has a tragic tinged moodiness but never really gets going. A cast full of British actors tells you that it was shot somewhere in eastern Europe. Both Cooper and Lawrence feel ill at ease with their characters.Director Susanne Bier has made a misfire yet atoned for this by directing the wonderful spy thriller for BBC television, The Night Manager.

It's 1929 Smokey Mountains in Carolina. George Pemberton (Bradley Cooper) runs a logging company obsessed with hunting a panther. After the recent crash, the bank takes his land in Brazil as collateral. He falls for Serena (Jennifer Lawrence) and quickly marries her. Sheriff McDowell (Toby Jones) wants to buy up his land and turn it into parkland. There is disloyalty, murder, pressure, miscarriage and ultimately destruction.The problems start with how quick Lawrence and Cooper get together. They're married before the audience is settled down. The chemistry never has a chance because the filmmaker assumes it without setting it up. This is a passionate romantic melodrama but the movie is utterly flat. Lawrence becomes a modern female heroine but then she turns again. It's a pretty looking film but emotionally detached.

Serena was filmed when Silver Lining's Playbook was being aired, but didn't reached its audience until two years after. Set during the American depression, Serena (Lawrence), a feisty, headstrong woman, becomes the wife of bureaucratic timber- man, Pemberton (Cooper). They have dreams of living far away from their home town in North Carolina, but Pemberton's past threatens to destroy everything they're working for. Serena is rife with potential. The settings are beautiful, the costumes, hair and make-up are extraordinarily detailed. It's ruinous then, that its material isn't profound enough to interest us in the lead characters and their problems.

With Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence in this film, I am sure folks immediately thought of their lovely romance in "Silver Linings Playbook"--and that's natural. However, when people saw that this was NOT a romantic film but a very, very grim and slow film, I am sure that alone turned off many fans. Regardless, folks were sure turned off and this went on to be one of the biggest money-losing films of the year. Despite this, is the film any good?Well, yes and no. I'd say yes in that there are some very nice performances==particularly by Jennifer Lawrence. While she plays a thoroughly unlikable lady, she is able to convey a lot of emotions without actually saying anything. I was very impressed by her. As for Bradley Cooper....well, his character wasn't very interesting. The film also has some lovely location shots. What I didn't like, was that the film was too stark, too quiet and too god-awful depressing. Additionally, and this is a more minor quibble, but I HATE how in the close-up shots the camera NEVER remains still. I am sure some folks think it makes the film artsy, but on the big screen it probably induced nausea.The story itself is about greed, corruption and amorality--themes that made me think of "There Will Be Blood", though without the larger than life leading performance. The Pembertons (Lawrence and Cooper) marry and move to the area which is now the Great Smokey National Park during the early Depression. Their goals are to eventually earn enough for a huge spread in Brazil--and both seem willing to abandon morality and decency to do it. However, Mrs. Pemberton is a lot like Lady Macbeth--the vicious woman pushing her husband to do ANYTHING to earn this fortunate. But when Mrs. Pemberton realizes that a woman in town with a small child is Mr. Pemberton's, this same vicious and amoral energy is about to be unleashed on the husband, child and old mistress.This is a slow and unpleasant film...I'll admit this readily. However, I don't think overall that it's a bad film--even if it is a movie practically overflowing with nastiness! I see it as a film that STILL has an interesting story that could have certainly been much better. Giving the story some energy, some life would have greatly improved it. As it is, I just can't see most folks being very willing to watch this sort of unpleasantness.