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When you’re George Pemberton (Bradley Cooper), a logging magnate living in the forests of North Carolina during the Great Depression, what do you do for fun? You hunt panthers. Sometimes with a gun, other times with obtuse dialogue characteristic of your bawcock persona (“Hello. I think we should be married.”)

Serena (2015) presents audiences with two types of panthers: the literal large cat elusively wandering the woods around Pemberton’s logging camp, and the metaphoric titular character Serena (Jennifer Lawrence), an intimidating and pressurizing woman heavily uncharacteristic of the time period. Both are cold and vicious. Both have spent their existences alone. And most importantly, both are hard to pin down. Just as George Pemberton spends the film hunting the wild cat, he finds satisfying and controlling his wife an equally thrilling challenge. Serena is gorgeous and intelligent, bawdy and fearless, disinterested in ladylike activities and instead takes to training eagles and swinging axes.

Serena’s behavior is, quite obviously, what Pemberton values most in her. When the two are married and he brings her back to the camp, she wastes no time commanding authority of his business and bossing around his subordinates. George does not find her ruthlessness concerning; rather, he appears to be fascinated by Serena’s free spirit and poise. As the film progresses, he learns her ruthlessness stretches beyond the scope of his anticipations - a truth that leads to the couple’s downfall.

There’s an obvious and genuine danger in getting too close to a powerful and barbarous wild animal. They don’t have boundaries. They are primitive, protective, and dangerous when in trouble. These are also the defining qualities of Serena - and just as George finds himself too close to the company of the large cat at the film’s end, his proximity to Serena unravels his relationship, his business, and his existence.