It is Depression - era North Carolina and George Pemberton (Cooper) seems to be one of the few successful businessmen in his mountainous region, running a flourishing timber empire. (rogerebert.com)
In the years before World War I, Byron Aldridge led a charmed life as the charismatic heir apparent to a Pennsylvania timber empire; and to his younger brother, Randolph, he was both guide and idol. (bookbrowse.com)
In the North Carolina mountains at the end of the 1920s, George (Bradley Cooper) and Serena Pemberton (Jennifer Lawrence), love - struck newly - weds, begin to build a timber empire. (metacritic.com)