J Law's Serena loses steam

WHETHER she's a superhuman shape-shifter sheathed in a slinky indigo bodysuit for an X-Men movie, the wacky wife of a greasy con-artist in American Hustle or a sci-fi heroine who knocks off adversaries the old-fashioned way with bow and arrow in The Hunger Games series, Jennifer Lawrence is a gal with game - a young actress with good genes and great acting chops. Unfortunately, Serena won't be at the top of her resume.

When J Law and Bradley Cooper team up to form an impossibly attractive screen couple, expectations run high, but after the delicious highs of Silver Linings Playbook (2012) and American Hustle (2013), neither delivers the goods this time around. In the title role of Serena, she plays the strong-willed wife of a timber businessman in Depression-era America, standing by her man - leading him, even - during a time when women were typically restricted to domestic duties involving babies and kitchen aprons.

The film, directed by Susanne Bier, written by Christopher Kyle and and based on the novel of the same name by Ron Rash, requires Lawrence to be - among other things - blonde, beautiful, an expert rider, able to train eagles at will and pretty handy with an axe and a tourniquet. Leaping tall buildings in a single bound was somehow missed out. So far so unbelievable - her character is simply too thinly drawn and the storyline not nearly strong enough to convince an audience primed for Oscar-calibre material.