Movie Review: Serenity

Fishing boat captain Baker Dill (Matthew McConaughey) is a reclusive man residing on a small, remote island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean whose heavy boozing and obsession with catching a giant tuna that has alluded him for months has put him in a rough financial situation. Dill's simple world of self-inflicted suffering is suddenly disrupted when his ex-wife (Anne Hathaway) shows up and offers him $10 million to kill her abusive husband (Jason Clarke) that has been terrorizing her and Baker's estranged son (Rafael Sayegh) since he went off-the-grid several years earlier. With this tempting proposal looming over him, Dill is now forced to decide between receiving a life-altering payday or allowing the family he left behind to continue enduring a hellish existence in order protect  his own freedom. Sounds like a pretty typical erotic/psychological thriller right? Well it is..... until it deviates from its seemingly predictable course with a BONKERS plot twist so unexpected that it almost doesn't feel real.  

Is Serenity a great movie? Nah, not really. However, the sheer conviction it shows in seeing this loopy late game narrative wrinkle through makes me respect the hell out of it. Having the audacity to not only make such a drastic turn, but rapidly ratchet up the insanity until the final frame is the type of gloriously reckless power move that I wish more filmmakers would have the gall to do. Even when it's executed as sloppily this, being genuinely surprised by a direction a movie heads in is such a rare feeling that I have to appreciate it whenever it occurs. How writer/director Steven Knight was able to secure approximately $25 million in funding, an ensemble cast full of talented actors (in addition to the aforementioned trio of well-established adult actors, Diane Lane, Djimon Honsou and Jeremy Strong all have notable supporting roles) and a wide theatrical release for a project like this is some mind-boggling sorcery that defies whatever passes as logic in the always whacky entertainment industry.

While it'll more than likely go down as a universally-panned misstep for everyone involved, I'd be stunned if anything else released in 2019 can match Serenity's singular strangeness and unhinged creative fearlessness. Injecting some beautiful chaos into an otherwise sleepy January cinematic landscape is a feat that I'll look back fondly on for years to come, so shout out to Knight for concocting such an ill-advised yet uniquely compelling feature.        

Grade: B-