Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway are sunk in ‘Serenity’

Serenity is a 2019 American neonoir thriller film written, produced and directed by Steven Knight. The film stars Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Diane Lane, Jason Clarke, Djimon Hounsou, and Jeremy Strong, and follows a fishing boat captain who is approached by his ex-wife to murder her abusive new husband.

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 22% based on 93 reviews, and an average rating of 4/10. The website’s critical consensus reads, “A high-concept mystery with a twist, Serenity isn’t what it appears to be at first -- unfortunately, it’s also not anywhere near as clever or entertaining as it thinks.” On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 38 out of 100, based on 33 critics, indicating “generally unfavorable reviews”.

Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of “D+” on an A+ to F scale, while those at PostTrak gave it an “awful” overall positive score of 56% and an “atrocious” definite recommend rating of 34%. Christy Lemire of RogerEbert.com gave the film one star, calling it “terrible and insane” and writing: “Similar to Collateral Beauty and The Book of Henry – recent dramas with esteemed casts that went off the rails in enjoyably awful ways – Serenity is the kind of bonkers movie that truly must be seen to be believed”.

The Hollywood Reporter’s Todd McCarthy wrote, “Actors can usually have fun with such melodramatic roles, but Knight’s stratagems serve to straitjacket the cast more than liberate it to diminishing returns as the climax remains an elusive vision on the horizon.”