The prologue to Causeway allows Jennifer Lawrence to be something she is not usually allowed to be on screen: quiet. Lawrence plays Lynsey, an American soldier who’s suffered a brain injury while in Afghanistan, and is returning to her hometown in New Orleans. But before that, she must adjust to everyday life, outside of a war zone with the help of a very patient carer Sharon (Jayne Houdyshell). She learns how to move her body, she starts to drive again, she does some vague memory games (not much in this film is particularly fleshed out). Everyday actions become miracles, though Lynsey’s frustration with herself means that they never really seem like victories. Throughout it all, she remains mostly silent.
Lawrence, who broke through with Winter’s Bone and won an Oscar for Silver Linings Playbook, became a proper movie star with some action-packed, teen-focused franchises. There was The Hunger Games, to which Lawrence brought a steely consistency, though the films, in which kids are forced to murder each other, brought diminishing returns. Then there was the X-Men franchise, where Lawrence was the very blue and eternally shape-shifting Mystique. Weirder choices, like Red Sparrow, where she played a Russian ballerina turned spy, had a schlocky appeal, but never felt like the best showcase for her abilities. And outside of the movies, there was a sense that Lawrence’s personality –as the internet’s favourite, most relatable dork – was tiring both herself and us.
So, finally in Causeway, which is out in cinemas and on Apple TV from 4 November, Lawrence resembles a regular person again, albeit someone who’s gone through something extraordinary. (Lawrence is also a co-producer of the film). Lynsey’s return to her hometown also means reuniting with her spikey mother, Gloria (Linda Emond). The mother-daughter relationship is a resentful one, and there’s also the question of her brother, who is now in prison. There are the more boring mundanities of life, too. Namely, getting a job, which Lynsey does easily, cleaning pools in the local area, allowing her access to the area’s more luxurious residences (these homeowners seem to be eternally away).
This sounds like pretty miserable stuff, and it would be endless if it weren’t for her friendship with a local mechanic. A dicey carburettor leads Lynsie to James (Brian Tyree Henry, from Atlanta and If Beale Street Could Talk). They have an instant, easy connection, skirting around each other’s dark pasts. They bond over snow cones, get a little high, chill out at her clients’ swimming pools. It’s a buddy movie, and their quest is to overcome mutual trauma. Again, not exactly laugh-a-minute, but the film finds comedy in the downbeat pairing. Refreshingly, Causeway is happy to end without a completely happy ending.
Though there’s no rush, things move quickly to the film’s 90-minute runtime. It’s sparingly directed by Lila Neugebauer, who wisely lets Lawrence and Henry get on with things without much fuss. The audience has to read a lot into the silences between Lynsie and James, but thanks to the actors’ chemistry, that didn’t feel too onerous. Their connection is so believable that they appear as old friends rather than new acquaintances within minutes. Life might suck, but isn’t it nice to drive in a car with a friend, listening to Here Come the Girls?
The screenplay – from Elizabeth Sanders, Luke Goebel and My Year of Rest and Relaxation writer Ottessa Moshfegh – is intelligent, with a few good lines. Her doctor (Stephen McKinley Henderson) asks her about how she sustained her injury, prompting Lynsie to go into excruciating length about her accident, which involves explosions, brain bleeds, human flesh on fire – the stuff of unimaginable trauma. “Tell me, how are you sleeping?”, the doctor asks. “Not great,” Lynsie deadpans. There’s that Lawrence attitude, the edge that was transfused into sarcastic GIFs which powered the internet for much of the 2010s.
The film, as with many films where not much happens, is almost impossible to spoil, and some may find it too glacial. Not everything here is perfect: the writing is sometimes so minimal it comes across as lazy rather than understated, Lynsie’s recovery seems awfully neat. A few moments – including a reunion with her brother – come out of nowhere in the last half hour. But it’s worth it to watch the two leads’ relationship grow and falter. And it really is very nice to have Jennifer Lawrence back, without a drop of blue body paint or murderous child in sight.
‘Causeway’ is out 4 November on Apple TV and in cinemas
Henry Wong is a senior culture writer at Esquire, working across digital and print. He covers film, television, books, and art for the magazine, and also writes profiles.
