Causeway

Jennifer Lawrence reminds us what a superlative actress she is as a woman recovering from trauma.

There are a lot of reasons to spend time with Causeway. Jennifer Lawrence is back in the actor’s driver’s seat and reminds us what a sensational actress she is. She can convey so much emotional narrative in just a few fractions of a look. And she’s in good company, too, with Brian Tyree Henry second-billed as an easy-going, compassionate mechanic who, for Lynsey, happens to be in the right place at the right time. There’s also excellent support from Linda Emond as Lynsey’s mother and Jayne Houdyshell as Lynsey’s rehabilitation carer. And with production design by the legendary Jack Fisk, New Orleans has a lived-in, immediate and faintly exotic aspect, like real life on the cusp of a meltdown.

Production on the film initially began in 2019, but was temporarily abandoned because of Hurricane Barry, and then delayed again because of the pandemic, when filming finally resumed in 2021. But Jennifer Lawrence, whose production company Excellent Cadaver co-produced, stuck by it, and for good reason. It allows her to flesh out an intricate character with physical and psychological issues who appears at times to be perfectly normal, but who, as we learn, is facing enormous internal battles.

We first find Lynsey as a catatonic shell, a wheelchair-bound woman reluctant to talk and even unable to clean her own teeth. She is in a rehabilitation centre and appears to be irreparably damaged. There is a dead look in her eyes that Ms Lawrence conveys with a scary conviction. Lynsey is suffering from a cerebral haemorrhage that she sustained while working for the US Army Corps of Engineers in Afghanistan. Then, step by step, she claws back her humanity, thanks to external forces and an interior will to make a difference in the world, again. She is told by her neurologist (the eminently wise Stephen McKinley Henderson) that the link between trauma and depression is stronger than the link between smoking and cancer. But Lynsey has her personal reasons to recuperate, but must learn to respect her limitations before she can face the world again.

Causeway marks the film debut of the theatre director Lila Neugebauer and the latter brings an immediate intelligence to her material and has created a free stage for her characters to breathe and to interact with each other. We believe Lynsey as a rounded human being, along with her ghosts and her frustrations. Essentially, this is a one-woman show about emotional rehabilitation and at times it can feel a little slight, a little ponderous. In some way, most of the characters are damaged or at least ‘diverse’, leading to an uncomfortable feeling of box-ticking. A lesser actress could hardly have held together such tenuous drama, but Lawrence makes our commitment worthwhile. Her fans will not be disappointed.

JAMES CAMERON-WILSON

Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Brian Tyree Henry, Linda Emond, Jayne Houdyshell, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Russell Harvard, Sean Carvajal, Frederick Weller, Will Pullen, Neal Huff.

Dir Lila Neugebauer, Pro Jennifer Lawrence and Justine Ciarrocchi, Screenplay Ottessa Moshfegh, Luke Goebel and Elizabeth Sanders, Ph Diego García, Pro Des Jack Fisk, Ed Robert Frazen and Lucian Johnston, Music Alex Somers, Costumes Heidi Bivens.

A 24/IAC Films/Excellent Cadaver-A24 Films.
94 mins. USA. 2022. UK and US Rel: 4 November 2022. Available on Apple TV+. Cert. 15.

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