David Pierdomenico
Back in 2013, writer/director Steven Knight wowed critics and fans alike with his self-contained and brilliantly compelling thriller Locke. So when Knight came back this year to write and direct a neo-noir thriller starring Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway, it seemed like it had all the makings for another modern classic. Most unfortunately, Serenity is anything but.
Trying to be a Modern Film Noir
The film opens with Baker Dill (Matthew McConaughey) and his first mate Duke (Djimon Honsou) taking tourists out on their fishing boat. Dill is a seemingly perpetual drunk who drinks to forget his troubled past. He lives on a tiny island in a town where everyone knows everyone. He seems to live a quiet, admittedly broke life. Whenever the tourism business doesn’t do well, or his customers refuse to pay him for poor service, he’s supplemented by a lonely cougar Constance (Diane Lane).
Dill’s quiet life is made rather chaotic when his ex-wife Karen (Anne Hathaway) shows up on the island. She tells him that she’s bringing her abusive husband Frank (Jason Clarke) and that she will pay him to take him out fishing and throw him overboard. His morality, desire for financial stability, along with his protective instinct for his ex-wife and son (both of which have suffered Frank’s abuses) are all at odds as he struggles to decide what he will do. From the first act, it’s quite clear that Serenity is trying to be like the classic film noirs of old. Despite some weird, over the top editing choices, it does manage to capture a Strangers on a Train vibe early on.
However, as the film goes on, its attempt to be a noir thriller begins to have all the cheesiness of The Tourist. It doesn’t help that the villain Frank is practically cartoonish in how evil they try to make him. Jason Clarke is usually a brilliant actor, but he’s not given much to work with in terms of script. To his credit, McConaughey’s charm and charisma still shine, even with the terrible writing he’s been given. Watching him just sort of play himself is legitimately entertaining.
Thinking It’s Much Smarter Than It Is
Without giving away the idiotic twist, there’s much more going on in the film than the audience initially realizes. There are a few instances of odd clunky dialogue in the beginning that seem like they’re trying to hint to it. However once the twist comes, it raises far more questions and inconsistencies than it answers. The very best surprise endings are the ones where audiences can go back, re-watch the film, and see clues they didn’t even realize before.
The problem with this twist however is that when you really look back at the rest of the film, it doesn’t make any sense. It seems as if Knight only though of the ending in the middle of screenwriting, and didn’t go back to make the rest of the story fit. And all the while, it treats itself with all the self-importance and gravitas of something like Collateral Beauty. Perhaps if the film didn’t take itself so seriously, or think of itself as so profound, the twist could have been laughed off. But instead, we’re stuck with a film that’s not quite sure how to present itself.
At one point during development, it probably seemed like a good concept, and with a better script, that made everything add up, it probably could have been an interesting thriller. But a great idea with poor execution still makes for a terrible film!
