Serena

IMDB
First time viewed: Yes
Current Release: Yes

It didn't take long to figure out this was adapted from a book. And not very successfully. The opening courtship between the two leads is only a fraction slower than in that trailer for the film. And the scenes continue to unfold like that for the rest of the running time. Just scene after scene of "what happens next" racing to get through a bunch of plot points in under two hours with not enough attention paid to actually making them matter in any meaningful way. Instead of a sweeping epic romantic tragedy we get a brief and cold telling of the general gist of it.

I don't know if this is from the editing or in the adaptation of the screenplay, or perhaps it's the original book. But I found this film pretty boring, despite the great cast that was assembled, that do there best to make these scenes matter.

I joked that the trailer made the film look like a miniseries television event from the early 80's. Now I've seen it I think that would have been a far more preferable way of telling the story. There's just no time here. If you're going to make a film with under a two hour running time, best to cut extraneous characters and focus the story, boil it down to the central characters and make them work, rather than trying to cram everything in.

This one's problematic, didn't work for me.