Nothing here exactly works. . . but I vastly prefer this film to Lawrence and Cooper's other collaborations.

| Feb 13, 2024

Lawrence and Cooper seem to be asleep in their roles, as disinterested as we are.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Jun 21, 2022

Attempts but does not succeed.

| Original Score: 1.5/5 | Oct 9, 2021

In the big picture Serena isn't an all out disaster, but because of the above-the-title talent involved it is a major disappointment.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Feb 2, 2021

Serena packs in as many shock-jolt moments as the average horror movie, though these have above average impact.

| Original Score: 3/5 | May 31, 2019

Lawrence and Cooper deserved better.

| Original Score: 5/10 | Dec 25, 2018

Director Susanne Bier's fans will be especially disappointed by the story's lack of focus and abrupt character development, flaws absent in her far superior films like After The Wedding, and In A Better World.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Dec 11, 2018

To describe this movie as unwatchable is generous. Neither Cooper nor Lawrence seem at ease with the painfully stilted and shapeless characters they portray.

| Original Score: 3/10 | Nov 2, 2018

What happens when love turns to hate could sum up Serena. It's a sweeping love story set in depression stricken America that fails to sweep the viewer in.

| Aug 21, 2018

This is a film that is epically ridiculous -- unbelievable in every way, simply impossible to act even for Lawrence, who struggles with the preposterous gear changes through hooker-grade make-up.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 19, 2018

Uneven pacing makes Serena a struggle.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Sep 7, 2017

As a film, [Serena] translates into a melodrama that makes little sense and fewer friends.

| Aug 2, 2017

A mess.

| Oct 5, 2016

Serena is pompous, stiff, drab and dreary, and the fizzing chemistry between Cooper and Lawrence that David O Russell so brilliantly captured is curiously absent here.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 5, 2016

The narrative has the choppy quality of a badly bowdlerised book, and the result is not bad so much as boring - and best thought of as a tree, fallen in the forest, that nobody heard.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 11, 2016

When Rhys Ifans doing a Carolina accent is the best thing in your movie, well... Maybe it's time to call the whole thing off.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Jan 24, 2016

Well, Serena isn't great, but it's better than the lousy reputation that precedes it.

| Jan 1, 2016

Serena is simply a one-off botch.

| Nov 12, 2015

It's an odd misfire from two actors at the peak of their game, but a misfire nonetheless.

| Nov 10, 2015

Considering how well Cooper and Lawrence meshed in Silver Linings Playbook, Serena's inert central dynamic underlines the fact that chemistry is as much a byproduct of directorial stewardship as it is of actors' natural chemistry.

| Nov 9, 2015