![]() ![]() ![]() The Rules steps in to nudge Baker back on track. As Patrick begins to change the game into one with murder as its focus, the game rebels. Within the game, his cover is that he is a representative from a fish and tackle company that wants to give Baker a fish finder (on a free trial!) to help him hook Justice. “Reid Miller” is the name on his business card. Before Karen even sets foot on the island, a bespectacled dweeb in a dark suit incongruous to this tropical setting marches awkwardly through the waves. For starters, The Rules (Jeremy Strong) is initially working against him. Though Patrick created Plymouth, there are clues that he is not in control of everything going on in Serenity. Is Patrick not only programming the game to enact a revenge fantasy against his stepfather but also to ensure his dad a string of sordid hook-ups? Is this 13-year-old computer whiz coding the scenes where Baker pimps himself out to Diane Lane’s purring, blowjob-giving cat-lover? Or the one where Frank makes a sadistic fetish out of examining his wife’s nude and not-yet-bruised flesh? Or the one where Patrick’s parents hate-fuck without climax, followed by his dad announcing while zipping his fly in a bitter exaltation, “I win!”? Still, this premise gets uncomfortable when we consider the sex scenes. He’s a crass goon who mocks his stepson to strangers and callously inquires where he might find underaged “$10 ass.” His villainy is so absolute it’s cartoonish, but that-like much of Serenity’s over the top elements from Hathaway’s breathy bombshell, to Clarke’s tough guy accent, and McConaughey’s teeth-grit bravado-makes sense when you realize its all borne from the brain of a child in panic. In Plymouth, Frank is a vicious mobster who gets his kinks by lashing his wife’s flawless porcelain skin with a thick leather belt. In the real world, Frank is a violent construction worker, who abuses Patrick and his mom. Death will come to this island where Patrick’s dad still “lives.” Instead of chasing down the big tuna called Justice, Baker shifts his focus to the quest put before him by his ex: kill her brute of a husband, Frank Zariakas (Jason Clarke). No longer is its focus little challenges like catching the local cougar’s straying pet cat or hooking fish for profit or trophies. Her appearance marks a change in the game’s purpose. And I got so mad,” Baker recounts, “Maybe that’s why you made me like I am, mad as hell to catch that damn fish.” In an act of love and grief, Patrick created a world where his dad could fish all day long and where Baker’s defining traits were rage and obsession.īut things get gnarly when Patrick programs his mom Karen (Hathaway) and a new mission into the game. It’s a shimmering flashback where Baker frolics on a dock with a preschool-aged Patrick as the two go fishing. To escape, Patrick channeled his need for a father-figure and a savior into designing a game based around the one memory he has of his dad, who died while serving in the military. Outside his bedroom door, we can hear his mother’s cries as her husband assaults her. Serenity cuts between sunny Plymouth and Patrick’s bedroom, a dark place with maps on the wall, a model lighthouse, a fish tank, and a computer at which the boy is always at rapt attention. He’s a video game character created by Patrick (Rafael Sayegh), a grief-stricken boy dealing with an abusive stepdad in the wake of his biological father’s death. ![]() Baker Dill (McConaughey) is not a traumatized war vet who fled from life and love to a squalid, tropical island in the middle of nowhere. So what’s the strange secret of Plymouth where “everybody knows everything?” It’s not real. ![]() And we’re going to dive in to talk about this wild film’s head-turning twist and mind-melting ending. Beneath a slick sheen of sweat and seaspray, this island-set thriller is something far stranger. But don’t forget, these are stars who’ve been reveling in weird, turning out bonkers offerings like the Kaiju comedy Colossal and whatever in ball-tripping hell Beach Bum is. On its surface, Serenity is a sultry neo-noir, bolstered by A-listers Matthew McConaughey and Anne Hathaway. ![]()
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