Causeway

Grade: B

Causeway, a new Apple Original movie from A24, has the kind of limited release, art house feel that would have felt right at home at a theater like Atlanta’s Tara Cinema. Acclaimed theatre director Lila Neugebauer makes her feature film debut here. It’s a reflective character study without any Hollywood bells and whistles.

Jennifer Lawrence plays Lynsey, a US soldier returning home from Afghanistan after an IED explosion caused her to hit her head and give her a brain injury. My first thought was that she healed up remarkably well, because, well, she looks like Jennifer Lawrence. No bruises, scars, or evidence of surgery. She does need to relearn some fundamental everyday activities, like walking, brushing her teeth, and not dropping things. But she is determined to get a clean bill of health so she can go right back to work overseas.

When dropping her mom’s truck off at the shop, she befriends James, a mechanic. He is disabled, too, in a way I’ll leave you to discover. They go out for burgers and snow cones on various occasions. They stay up late talking and drinking and smoking weed and swimming. But this isn’t a lazy movie meet cute that leads to a romance. Lynsey proclaiming in an early scene that she’s not interested in men puts a quick convenient end to that possibility. James is played by Brian Tyree Henry (Bullet Train, Joker, If Beale Street Could Talk), who has wonderful chemistry with Lawrence. This is where director Lila Neugebauer’s stage experience comes into play and serves the movie well.

Throughout its lean hour and 34 minute running time, Causeway’s dialogue floods us with backstories jam-packed with detail. You have to really pay attention. The title comes from a character’s expository sob-story. There’s an unexpected artistic touch late in the movie – during a prison visit scene. I’m not sure how I felt about it. On the one hand, it gave the scene a poignancy and made the dialogue land better. But then the cynical part of my brain wondered if it was put in to piggyback off our most recent Best Picture Oscar winner – which was also an Apple Original.

Causeway is a good movie that’s too pensive and heavy-handed all the time to be a truly great one, but it is nice to see Lawrence again, in a grounded performance in a quieter project. She is the real deal. I am discovering how much I love scenes where two characters are getting to know each other, and just talk. When the dialogue feels natural and not there to advance the plot – when it’s just two new friends shooting the breeze, there’s almost nothing better. Causeway has scenes like that, and that’s where it soars.

Grade: B