Serenity. The first thing brought to my attention was the poster/cover page of the movie Serenity; released in the beginning of 2019 and directed by Steven Knight. Usually, you can predict what type of movie you’re going to watch just by looking at the poster. A romantic love story poster usually shows two characters close to each other like in The Notebook or Titanic. A horror movie like The Nun shows a scary looking character. So, when I saw the serious, almost worried looks on Karen (Anne Hathaway) and Baker Dill’s (Matthew McConaughey) faces and the black and grey background with a line of red in the middle, made it look like a serious, realistic type of movie, but I stood corrected.

The movie starts off with an introduction to Baker Dill’s life. He is a fishing boat captain who occasionally takes tourists with him to visit the surroundings of the small enclaved piece of land called Plymouth Island. However, his main goal is to capture “Justice” an enormous tuna fish. Right off the bat, the audience assumes through the introduction of the movie, that the storyline will revolve around Baker Dill capturing that fish. Right after, however, Dill’s ex wife, Karen, has tracked him down to beg for help. She offers Dill $10 million, to bring her abusive husband Frank (Jason Clarke) on his boat and drop him for the sharks to eat. Contemplating on the right and wrong, Dill has flashbacks from his son Patrick, who is suffering from the abusive relationship his mom and Frank have together. Thus, the movie transforms from a realistic daily type of movie into thriller, and not to mention the few, yet present romantic scenes between Dill and his ex wife, which already confuses the audience about what the movie is going to be about.

The movie continues dragging the audience into a never ending plot twist which turns out confusing and unexpected. Throughout the story we get an overview of Patrick (the son of Karen and Baker Dill), and how he has programmed a game which consists of a character that needs to catch this specific fish. He spends days and nights in his room on his computer, to distract himself from the reality of his stepfather, Frank, abusing his mother. The audience is then told that Patrick has added a new goal to the game: killing a man. Right at the end, the audience is told that Baker Dill, whose actual name was John Mason died as a soldier in 2006 during the Iraq war. We then understand that Patrick programmed the game in honor of his father who died. The last scene of the movie tells us that Patrick found the courage to stab Frank, and protect his mother. The movie then ends there. This ending was very disappointing because of the drastic change from a thriller movie to sci-fi which was not expected whatsoever. In addition, the way the movie ends by telling the audience about Patrick’s actions felt very rushed and unfinished, leaving the audience with a lot of open questions. Now if you think that my explanation was confusing, imagine how confusing the movie was.

Despite the confusing, rushed, and all over the place storyline, I thought that the moral ending message the movie transmitted to the audience was somewhat good. Baker Dill mentions that “Sometimes we do bad things for good reasons.” Patrick was suffering greatly from not having a father by his side. Instead he had a “stranger” who was abusing his mother. He convinced himself to kill his abusive stepfather to save his mother and himself from the suffering. Baker Dill gives us this hint of doing bad things for good reasons when he decides to throw Frank out of his boat to the sharks (In the programmed game of Patrick). This shows us that Patrick’s father gave him the courage to do what had to be done. This theme is successfully transmitted to the audience. Thus, I believe the moral message wasn't too bad considering the plot twist was a disappointment.

Apart from the rushed and abrupt ending, the scenes captured in the movie itself were astonishing. The quality of the visuals in the movie was professionally well done. They included beautiful scenery of the island and the colorful, small, simple houses, giving a tropical laid back/relaxed vibe to the movie. They also show a gorgeous overview of the vast ocean and its natural environment around it. In terms of the acting involved in this movie, Anne Hathaway and Matthew McConaughey, who are known to be excellent, actors impressed me. The emotions they transmit to the audience through the audience and their fascinating ways of creating a realistic interaction between each other, captured my attention. However, I believe this sort of movie plot didn't match with such talented actors. The movie left me disappointed, and therefore twisted my mind into believing the actors jobs were poorly done. But with much more reflection, I came to the realization that these excellent actors didn't fit into this confusing plot twist and story line.

I believe this movie has great potential in terms of its visual quality, great actors and somewhat good message behind the story. The only thing that troubles me, and I believe what sets back the movies’ potential, is its drastic plot twist, as well as the change of different types of genres that end up leaving the audience into a rollercoaster of emotions. Not to forget the way the movie tells what happens in the end, rather than letting the audience understand for themselves. Serenity has great pros to the movie; however, I don't believe this movie is a success overall. Hopefully, director Steven Knight will find a better way of surprising the audience through his future upcoming movies.