Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper are coming back to steam up a screen sometime soon. The trailer for their upcoming drama Serena hit the internet this morning, and while she swings an ax and hunts with what looks like a falcon, Lawrence isn’t rocking a long braid and bow for this movie.

The film is an adaptation of Ron Rash’s 2008 novel with the same name and has been in production for a number of years with different directors and stars attached. It follows Boston newlyweds George and Serena Pemberton as they arrive in the mountains of North Carolina in 1929 to launch what will become a timber empire. Despite her soft upbringing, Serena soon rises to the challenges of mountain life, overseeing crews, hunting rattle-snakes and saving her husband’s life in the wilderness, but all is not copacetic, and when they learn Serena will never have a child of her own, everything starts to unravel. There’s an illegitimate family he protects. There’s a henchman she employs. The trailer reminds us of the high drama towards the end of Legends of the Fall as the Ludlow’s dynasty began to fall apart.

With Academy Awards and nominations attached to Lawrence, Cooper and the film’s director Susanne Bier, there are high hopes that it will deliver in terms of quality, but the naysayers are questioning the long years it has been in production and the continued absence of a confirmed American release date to join the premieres in the UK, France, Australia and Germany all between October 24th and the holiday film release season. As much as we love the genre route both Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper have embraced these last few years, we have to admit we’re intrigued by this plot line that implies treachery and ruthlessness we don’t often get in science fiction heroes. Regardless, this trailer has us excited.