Friendship, family, guilt, and the need to form a connection are at the core of Jennifer Lawrence’s independent film Causeway. Lawrence plays Lynsey, a U.S. Army engineer who, after surviving an attack in Afghanistan, is sent home to recover from a traumatic brain injury.
The Army sets her up with rehab and a place to temporarily live with Sharon, a patient and thoughtful caregiver (Jayne Houdyshell). Once settled in at Sharon’s house, it’s the beginning of a long road back for Lynsey who must relearn to do some of the most basic things including using utensils to eat and finding the right words to communicate correctly.
After a relatively short period of time, Lynsey’s ready to go back home to New Orleans. The plan is for Lynsey to stay at her childhood home with her mother, Gloria (Linda Emond), while finishing her recovery. Once home, Lynsey obtains a job cleaning pools and is determined to become strong enough to return to Afghanistan and continue to serve.
When Gloria’s truck breaks down Lynsey takes it to a garage for repair and meets the owner, James (Brian Tyree Henry). Realizing Lynsey seems a little out of her element, James offers to give her a ride. Lynsey notices that James has a prosthetic leg and asks if he served. He didn’t. Instead, his leg was amputated as the result of a car accident.
From here the film focuses on the budding friendship between these two lost souls. Their initial interactions come when Lynsey reaches out to James for help moving heavy pool equipment and then for a ride to her doctor’s appointment. They begin to hang out and bond while getting drunk and eating snow cones.
It’s obvious Lynsey and James are drawn to each other but not because of a romantic attraction; Lynsey nixes that idea when she makes it clear she prefers women. They connect because they’re both wounded, lonely, and misunderstood people struggling with physical and emotional trauma as well as survivor’s guilt.
Causeway is a heavy-handed psychological drama of which the first 10 minutes are the best part of the film. The scenes with Houdyshell as Sharon taking care of Lynsey as she struggles to relearn simple tasks and slowly build up her strength feel real and come off authentic. Houdyshell’s brief performance is truly the highlight of the film.
From there, it’s a slow and tedious trip for the audience as Lawrence deals with her old hometown and its ghosts, which aren’t even interesting. Jennifer Lawrence sleepwalks her way through the film as Lynsey whose closed-off and blasé attitude results in creating an uninteresting character we’re left having a hard time caring about.
Brian Tyree Henry has some strong moments as James, the kind but broken mechanic who’s filled with self-loathing and survivor’s guilt. The scene where he tells Lynsey about the accident is his best moment in the film.
Unfortunately, most of the scenes between James and Lynsey are filled with long pregnant pauses and go on and on without either one having much to say. It’s not dramatic, just painfully boring and drawn out.
Sadly, as a film dealing with survivor’s guilt, PTSD, and finding a way to move forward, director Lila Neugebauer’s Causeway feels like a well-intentioned but missed opportunity.
GRADE: C
MPAA Rating: R for drug use, some language, and sexual references
Running Time: 1 hour 32 minutes
Release Date: November 4, 2022 in limited theaters and streaming on Apple TV+
Studio: A24
