Having read, and enjoyed, Ron Rash's novel I am not sure what I saw on the screen. I don't know who is to blame -- the director, the editor or the screen writer. They did not stick to the book so if you liked the book, this film is not it. The story tries to focus on a seldom exposed setting of the time frame and place combination. There are quite many movies about the depression era, but most of them are movies about mobsters, bootleggers, or at least there is a significant crime and violence portion within them. There are also movies about mountainous country sides and or the logging and timber companies or industries, but none of them takes the specific depression era time setting.
Nevertheless, I think that the story's interesting starting point doesn't really give any warranty that developed story lives up to it. Although the first few minutes of the movie is nicely unpredictable, especially on how the main characters meet and marry, but the rest of the rest becomes very much so right after.
Bier's Serena is the same story boiled down into an unmemorable soap opera fluff cash-grab buddy flick oddly devoid of any chemistry. Not unlike the "expendables" franchise, one gets the impressions that the films main stars are never actually in the same room together. The "surprises" Bier plants aren't surprises if you're familiar with the novel.
