On paper, “Serena” should have been something arriving in theaters with a great splash. With an Oscar-winning prestige director in the shape of Susanne Bier, it’s the adaptation of an acclaimed novel that once attracted the attention of Darren Aronofsky and Angelina Jolie. It has some stunning production value and lavish period costumes and sets, and features two of the world’s biggest and most lauded stars: Oscar-winner Jennifer Lawrence, and three-time Oscar nominee Bradley Cooper, coming off mega-smash “American Sniper.” And yet the film slinks into limited release this Friday, having debuted on VOD a few weeks back.
If you’ve seen it there, or on its release elsewhere in the world, or even just read our review from last year, you’ll know there’s a reason for this: it’s terrible, overwrought, incoherent and uneven. It could probably pass for an unintentionally funny melodrama parody, a la “The Spoils Of Babylon,” if it wasn’t so damn boring. And somehow, it manages to...
