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'Serena': The Jennifer Lawrence-Bradley Cooper Movie Gone Wrong

posted 10 years ago by godteri-95
4 replies | jump to latest

Did we expect something else?

After months of quietly shopping the film, no other distributor took an interest in Serena. With names like that on the marquee, how could this be?

“It’s just a bad movie. It’s unfortunate. It’s boring and it’s slow,” one independent distribution executive told Mashable.

“It’s not a good movie,” said another. “It’s not like it’s embarrassing for Jennifer Lawrence or Bradley Cooper — it’s just that the script is [expletive].”
http://mashable.com/2014/09/17/jennifer-lawrence-bradley-cooper-serena/

[–] CharlesTheBold 10 years ago

It sounds to me like the moviemakers were stuck with incompatible goals. The book, from reviews that I've read, portrays the couple as appalling greedy, caring nothing for either the land or the workers in their employ. The movie trailer tries to make it look like a love story. Ironically, the idea of using a "love story" to distract from other issues was satirized in one of Jennifer's prior movies, HUNGER GAMES.

[–] kuntext 10 years ago

Did we expect something else?

After months of quietly shopping the film, no other distributor took an interest in Serena. With names like that on the marquee, how could this be?

“It’s just a bad movie. It’s unfortunate. It’s boring and it’s slow,” one independent distribution executive told Mashable.

“It’s not a good movie,” said another. “It’s not like it’s embarrassing for Jennifer Lawrence or Bradley Cooper — it’s just that the script is [expletive].”
http://mashable.com/2014/09/17/jennifer-lawrence-bradley-cooper-serena/

I was expecting it to be much better. I love the the leads as well as many in the supporting cast and their performances were great. The locations and music were gorgeous. Costumes looked great.

So, writing, directing and editing... very poor. I don't feel qualified to determine exactly where the problem lies, but this film missed the mark.

I haven't read the book. Another poster here answered questions about the adaptation to screen which led me to believe that the writer missed the elements which made the story compelling to begin with. By comparison, this story is superficial and pointless.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Debate. Not hate. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[–] CharlesTheBold 9 years ago

Watched the first 20 minutes of the movie, and I could tell something had gone wrong. The scenes are:

(1) Cooper goes to a horse show and seems mesmerized by Jennifer on horseback. (She seems to be the only one competing!)
(2) He follows her on his own horse and they flirt.
(3) Montage of scenes, including one of them in bed.
(4) They come back to his home and they announce that they are married.

What's missing? Any explanation of why they are attracted to each other in the first place.

By comparison: In Jennifer's other movies, they make a mystery of her character's feelings but at least you see reasons why the leads would be attracted to each other.

[–] Rick-34 9 years ago

Yeah, that did seem a bit abrupt.

I could have lived with that, but it was just the first of many problems. The biggest problem was the massive change in tone about halfway through.