It's easy to miss Serenity; I certainly hadn’t heard of it before. The movie had a limited theatrical run, earning just $11.4 million against a $25 million budget. But one of the good things about reviewing films is discovering ones you might otherwise skip, and Serenity proved to be quite an experience—more like a head-on collision than a smooth ride, really. The basic story follows Baker Dill (MATTHEW MCCONAUHEY), a fishing boat captain who runs tours from Plymouth Island. His quiet life gets disrupted when his ex-wife Karen (ANNE HATHAWAY) finds him. She’s desperate and asks for his help to save her son from her abusive husband (JASON CLARKE). Her plan is for Baker to take the man out on a fishing trip—and then let him fall overboard to the sharks. Forced back into a past he'd tried to leave behind, Baker struggles with doing what’s right. That sounds straightforward enough, and that’s essentially what happens in the film. I initially thought I was watching a modern film noir, but it turned out to be something more like The Truman Show. Despite how bizarre some of it is—and how little sense it makes—I have to say, I found myself entertained. The acting quality varies considerably. Some of the supporting actors, including Djimon Hounsou as Dill’s skipper and Diane Lane in a role that felt almost stereotypical, were good. However, McConaughey's performance was inconsistent, shifting between calm and exaggerated, which made me wonder if he realized how strange the movie had become. Hathaway gave a solid performance, though her character seemed like she belonged in an older film noir. Jason Clarke fully committed to playing a brutish, thoroughly unpleasant person—which is necessary for the main character to even consider killing him. Beyond my comparison to The Truman Show, I won't say too much more so as not to spoil the twist, which M. Night Shyamalan might have appreciated… and I did too, even though it didn’t quite make sense, even after thinking about what happened. Still, it was certainly one of the most unusual and confusing movie experiences in recent years. Serenity comes from Steven Knight, an Academy Award nominee for writing Dirty Pretty Things, who has also written Eastern Promises, Allied, and The Girl in the Spider’s Web, among other films. This is his third directorial effort, following Redemption with Jason Statham and Locke starring Tom Hardy, both released in 2013.

Source on TMDB