Jennifer Lawrence - SERENA S&S #4 ~ “Most folks stay in the dark and then complain they can’t see nothing.”

**Violent Delights** · 10-25-2014, 01:35 PM

Welcome to the
SERENA
Spoilers & Speculation Thread #4

▮ Fans
01. Nadine
02. until morning
03 Elif_ZV
04 HutchLaw_Girl
05 Summer Falls

▮ Future Titles

01. "She walks in beauty.”

02. “It's a hard place this world can be. No wonder a baby cries coming in to it. Tears from the start”

03. “Others can make us vulnerable and the sooner such vulnerabilities are dealt with the better”

▮ Past Threads
( 01 ) ( 02 ) ( 03 ) ( 04 ) ( 05 )

▮ Synopsis

The film follows newlyweds George (Cooper) and Serena Pemberton (Lawrence) who travel from Boston to the mountains of North Carolina where they begin to build a timber empire in 1929. Serena soon shows herself to be the equal of any man: overseeing crews, hunting rattle-snakes, even saving a man’s life in the wilderness. Together, this king and queen rule their dominion, killing or vanquishing all who stand in the way of their ambitions. But when Serena learns that she can never bear a child, she sets out to murder the woman who bore George a son before his marriage. And when she starts to suspect that George is protecting his illegitimate family, the Pembertons’ intense, passionate marriage begins to unravel as the story moves toward its shocking reckoning.

▮ Trailer

▮ Websites

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**J-LawForever** · 10-25-2014, 01:59 PM

Oooooooooh. I gotta watch out for those spoilers then.

Thank for making a new thread.

Tati_SwanJones · 10-25-2014, 02:16 PM

TFTNT !!!

love the pics

TPF1138 · 10-25-2014, 02:23 PM

Saw it today.

Thoughts...

Quote:

As a fan of Jennifer Lawrence, Serena is a movie that is both heartening and frustrating in equal measure. Heartening because I can safely state that Lawrence is truly awesome in the picture, and frustrating because her performance, which vibrates with sincere determination and dug-in authenticity, deserves to be showcased within a more accomplished film.

Serena could be that film too. It is gorgeously shot, boasts solid performances all round, has enough substance and intrigue to fuel a ten part HBO drama, and its director is clearly engaged and fascinated by what she has to work with. The problem is she never quite decides how to tell the story. The pacing is choppy, there are misjudged attempts at brevity that end up feeling stilted and hasty, and the final third lurches through its plot progressions with only the barest hint of reason or context.

What resonates, what draws you in and holds your attention, what will in fact make me return to this movie again and again though, is Lawrence’s intense, forceful rendering of the title character. If the movie doesn't quite make sense of Serena’s descent into madness, Jennifer Lawrence certainly makes you believe it. She’s a marvel.

Oh, and I'm glad that my little tutorial from the previous thread was of help.

Tati_SwanJones · 10-25-2014, 02:26 PM

well thats something good,

TPF1138 · 10-25-2014, 02:37 PM

It is definitely good. See it.

**J-LawForever** · 10-25-2014, 03:20 PM

Oh, so lucky you!

So Jelly now.

mlkj13 · 10-25-2014, 07:30 PM

Good to hear. Looking forward to seeing Jennifer's performance. Wish the US release was much sooner.

I love that second pic of Bradley and Jen.

**J-LawForever** · 10-25-2014, 11:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mlkj13 (View Post)

Good to hear. Looking forward to seeing Jennifer's performance. Wish the US release was much sooner.

I love that second pic of Bradley and Jen.

Right? But til then we have Mockingjay Part 1 coming out soon!

:

TPF1138 · 10-26-2014, 12:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mlkj13 (View Post)

Good to hear. Looking forward to seeing Jennifer's performance.

She really is brilliant. There are moments that are just... I don't want to get into spoilers, but thee's a moment in a hospital room where she is so raw and real that it's uncomfortable. Like you're intruding...

If the movie was stronger overall, she'd be looking at another Oscar nomination, No question!

**Violent Delights** · 10-26-2014, 09:51 AM

So Serena - higher in the ranking than HatES?

TPF1138 · 10-26-2014, 10:11 AM

HaTES holds together better narratively, largely because it's essentially telling a story that's been told many times before. Serena though, is vastly more interesting, and Jennifer's performance really is one of her best. Genuinely.

So Serena ranks higher IMO. Comfortably.

**J-LawForever** · 10-26-2014, 12:49 PM

HATES isn't that bad. I mainly like it for Jen.

TPF1138 · 10-27-2014, 12:21 AM

HatES is fine. Without wanting to hijack this thread though, here's how I reviewed it when it was released...

Quote:

Describing House at the End of the Street as a modern day Psycho, is hitting the nail pretty much on the head. Anybody familiar with the hundreds of suspense thrillers to hit the screens since Hitchcock’s seminal classic - including that movie's own sequels, prequels, and deconstructions – is going to recognise much of what we get in director Mark Tonderai’s latest entry into this particular sub-sect of the Horror genre.

While essentially remixing what’s gone before, Tonderai nonetheless handles it all very well, displaying the sort of restraint and attention to suspense building, as opposed to cheap shocks, that the great old master surely would have given his endorsement to. David Louka’s script even manages to be slightly unexpected (only slightly mind) by offering up a small, if appreciated, wrinkle once all is revealed. It’s a shame then, that the whole thing comes down to the well-worn escape-from-basement mainstay, but it is at least well realised.

The characters surprisingly are quite complex, and the performances are uniformly strong.

Max Thieriot does a fine job of walking the line between lonely put-upon survivor of tragedy, and delusional, isolated nutter, actually managing to keep the audience guessing as to which side of that line he truly belongs on, right up until it’s made clear.

Elizabeth Shue does solid work as the worried mother, trying to find a new beginning for herself and her daughter. Sarah’s concerns never seem unreasonable, or her actions histrionic. She behaves like a real person, and that’s to be complimented.

Finally Jennifer Lawrence plays rebellious (with a small r) teen Elissa with welcome restraint, never letting the character become overbearingly whiney as she battles her mother’s seemingly irrational restrictions on getting too close to their new neighbour. She instead reads as inquisitive, brash and frank. It’s hard not to marvel at how REAL she is quite frankly. There’s a subtlety and nuance at work here that isn’t usually in evidence when viewing this type of character on screen, and that’s all credit to Lawrence.

One moment in particular I noticed, when Elissa manages to free herself from ropes that bind her to a chair, Lawrence flashes the briefest of smiles, a little frantic, nervy flicker of elation that gets promptly swallowed up by the knowledge that she’s still far from safe, felt very.. well… real!

Elissa is also mercifully un-moronic. Once it’s revealed what exactly it is that she’s facing she behaves intelligently and believably in her drive to save herself.

All in all it’s a pretty decent, if predictable, suspense thriller, let down by a fairly by-the-numbers conclusion. It’s not a game changer by any stretch, but then it’s not trying to be. It just wants to be a solid example of what it is. For the most part it succeeds.

Like I say, Serena may not have as tight a grip on its plot, but what it's working with is so much more rich and interesting, that comparing it to a by the numbers thriller is fairly redundant. Serena is a fascinating failure boasting a tremendous performance from our girl, House at the End of the Street is largely just forgettable. Jennifer's good, but there's not really much there for her to sink her teeth into.

**Violent Delights** · 10-27-2014, 12:18 PM

Total Film didn't even give Jen a good review for this one though.

Quote:

J-Law in particular looks woefully at sea, convincing neither as the upstart interloper Serena initially appears nor as the teary headcase she becomes

Serena Review | TotalFilm.com

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Fan Forum > Female Celebrities > Jennifer Lawrence > SERENA S&S #4 ~ “Most folks stay in the dark and then complain they can’t see nothing.”