Jennifer Lawrence shines even if Causeway doesn’t
Vital performances from Jennifer Lawrence and Brian Tyree Henry aren't enough to lift this story of physical and emotional rehab
Film Reviews Jennifer Lawrence
In Causeway, Jennifer Lawrence plays Lynsey, an Afghanistan War veteran who sustained severe combat injuries that left her temporarily disabled. She is first shown in a wheelchair, unable to dress herself, get up, use the bathroom, take pills, or bathe without the assistance of her nurse, Sharon (Jayne Houdyshell). Lynsey does not seem to find her predicament devastating; though when Sharon allows that she went into nursing following years as her husband’s caregiver, Lynsey carelessly responds, “What a miserable life.”
Lynsey works with a neuropsychologist on her head injury and memory loss, and with physical therapists to slowly learn to walk again, using parallel bars and a walker. The film’s attention to detail and Lawrence’s performance are particularly impressive, and it comes as no surprise that the names of several physical therapy consultants appear in the end credits. These opening scenes fastidiously depict the laborious rehabilitation process, giving hope that the film will faithfully render the physical and emotional obstacles on this road to recovery without clichés. Sadly, that’s wishful thinking.
After powering through rehab, Lynsey earns her release from the facility. She is understandably keen to get back to work and resume a sense of normalcy, but for now she must return to her native New Orleans until a doctor will sign off on her next deployment. When her bus pulls into the station, no one is there to pick her up. When her mother, Gloria (Linda Emond), finally gets home, they barely exchange a few words. The next day, Lynsey promptly lands a job cleaning pools, and when her truck breaks down, she seeks help from mechanic James (Atlanta’s Brian Tyree Henry). As it turns out, they have quite a bit in common. She used to play basketball against his sister, and he is dealing with his own physical and emotional trauma stemming from a car accident.
Causeway sets out to be about two broken souls forging a beautiful friendship. But just as everything centering on Lynsey’s rehabilitation rings true, everything about the friendship feels inauthentic. James behaves like the perfect boyfriend, which immediately prompts Lynsey to set up boundaries by announcing she likes girls, for fear of giving him false hope. They ought to act like bros from this point on, but the trite romantic overtone persists and builds up to a kiss both characters instantly regret. Perhaps to avoid vilifying James, the story has Lynsey as the one who initiates, which makes it even less believable.
The screenplay, by novelist Ottessa Moshfegh, Luke Goebel, and Elizabeth Sanders, takes two potentially fascinating characters and tosses them into this formulaic trap so that everything they do feels like a date. You have to wonder if the screenwriters truly believe that is the only kind of relationship permissible between a grown man and a grown woman, or if their conceptual range is so limited that they don’t know how to write about friendship, support, joy, and purpose without the prospect of romantic love present.
The actors definitely aren’t at fault. Lawrence, who also shares producing credit, obviously recognizes the material’s potential as an acting showcase. Scenes revolving around the rehabilitation process are some of her career best. Henry is certainly her match acting wise, and excellent as a leading man. It’s a shame the screenplay calls for them to be in seemingly romantic situations yet stipulates that there should be absolutely zero chemistry between them because Lynsey is a lesbian.
Director Lila Neugebauer, who makes her feature debut with this film, has spent a decade directing theater. The film does feel a bit stagy, as if it were adapted from a play. Granted, it’s essentially a two-hander. But beyond that, the visuals don’t stand out. If the characters didn’t announce they were in New Orleans, you would never guess. Cinematographer Diego Garcia, who lensed Wildlife and Cemetery Of Splendor, makes the most of scenes that take place in a swimming pool at night, while production designer Jack Fisk (Mulholland Drive, There Will Be Blood) seems constrained by a limited budget. but other than the pair of outstanding lead performances, there really isn’t much cause to watch it.
45 Comments
They’re right. She’s shiny. I gotta give ‘em that.
She looks a lot like the girls I generate with Stable Diffusion. I’m not even telling the program to make them look like her — I think the training set must be overbalanced with pictures of her or something.
Algorithms, man! Algorithms!
She looks weird not being blue
I wonder if she was comfortable having to change her look so dramatically for this role as a white chick?
Da-boo-dee da-boo-dai
Mystique looked weird walking around naked when her classic comic book look is so good. Yet another crappy thing to hold against Bryan Singer (and continued via First Class alumina).
she looked great actually.
jlaw least likeable celebrity that isn’t kanye-style outright hated
Causeway feels like the movie Lawrence would’ve made after Winter’s Bone, if she hadn’t started doing franchise movies. She didn’t grow as an actor after that big breakout, and now this effort to get back to her roots feels about ten years too late.
I don’t think its fair to say she didn’t grow. Her performance in mother! was outstanding, something I don’t think she had in her after Winter’s Bone, and she was easily the best part of Don’t Look Up, I think her comedy chops have improved.
I mean she’s only 32. She has AT LEAST 7 more years before Hollywood fridges her for being old.
Lol did you see her Oscar winning turn in Silver Linings Playbook? Also Mother and Joy were amazing performances.
I hope this at least puts BTH in contention for more leading roles because his work in Atlanta is unbelievably good
They ought to act like bros from this point on, but the trite romantic
overtone persists and builds up to a kiss both characters instantly
regret.
Yes there should be more fiction/art/stories/whatever the word I’m looking that show platonic male/female relationship. That’s why I hate when ‘the couple who work together for ages then fall in love’ trope dating all the way back to Roxanne and Arnie in LA Law (then more recently Donna and Josh in The West Wing).
Perhaps to avoid vilifying James, the story has Lynsey as the
one who initiates, which makes it even less believable.
I don’t think it’s that unbelievable that someone would find BTH attractive.
I’m joking I know that’s not what reviewer is really saying.
Well, the one place where Hollywood’s been super comfortable over the years turning a potential romance into a platonic friendship is when that friendship is between a black man and a white woman. I still remember them casting arguably the two sexiest people then alive, Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington, in the Pelican Brief, the book of which has a seriously “tacked on for the adaptation”-feeling romance between those two characters, and at the end of the movie…I think they actually shake hands, that’s how uncomfortable everyone was with the implication that Denzel might in any way get physical with America’s Sweetheart. So at least in that way, JLaw and BTH going for it is progress.Also, I don’t think that Arnie/Roxanne or Josh/Donna are great examples of platonic friendship. They’re both the Bond/Moneypenny trope where, essentially, a secretary has a longstanding unrequited crush on her boss, who in turn looks for love everywhere but with the humble woman right in front of him (and I’ll admit, I did like the season-plus of work they put in to finally get Donna and Josh together).The platonic friendship gone astray that always killed me was Mulder and Scully on the X-Files. For years, it felt like a brave new world for TV, that these characters who’d be played for “will they/won’t they” romantic tension on any other show just weren’t interested in hooking up with each other, weren’t jealous of each other’s relationships, were just friends. They obviously cared about each other greatly but felt no need to get romantic…until, 5 or so seasons in, they started to.
Plus, you’d think Scully’s “There has to be a rational explanation for all this” shtick would be a turn off for Mulder given how often they encountered beings that were clearly ghosts, aliens, mutants, etc.
Obviously. Plus, Mulder looks like the kind of guy who has to sprinkle that occult and alien stuff into his pillow talk, and Scully’s the kind of person who’ll stop whatever she’s doing to speak up on behalf of rationality:“No, I can’t ‘Suck you like a vampire,’ Mulder. There are no such things as vampires.”“Wha? No, don’t stop! And…I mean, we met at least two of them. Last year. In Texas!”
I was just about to mention how Hollywood has a absolutely horrid track record of showing romantic interracial relationships between a black man/white woman. The author seems to have forgotten the pelican brief or the parody between Idris Alba and Julia Roberts on how that sort of pairing can’t be show in hollywood. So the minute I saw the image above, I already know they weren’t going to be together. So the idea that a man/woman can’t have a platonic relationship in hollywood is completely erronous when you look at the fact that almost all BM/WF pairings showing are indeed platonic.We all know why, and it’s why I say certain IR couples have the most difficult time in terms of representation (Basically anything non-white male related.) They aren’t in a group like LGBT to call this the IR form of queer-baiting, and our society is heading towards the vegetable tray separate but equal vs the tossed salad method originally envisioned. So calling out another example of “IR-baiting” is out of the picture.
I was just about to mention how Hollywood has a absolutely horrid track record of showing romantic interracial relationships between a black man/white woman. The author seems to have forgotten the pelican brief or the parody between Idris Alba and Julia Roberts on how that sort of pairing can’t be show in hollywood. So the minute I saw the image above, I already know they weren’t going to be together. So the idea that a man/woman can’t have a platonic relationship in hollywood is completely erronous when you look at the fact that almost all BM/WF pairings showing are indeed platonic.We all know why, and it’s why I say certain IR couples have the most difficult time in terms of representation (Basically anything non-white male related.) They aren’t in a group like LGBT to call this the IR form of queer-baiting, and our society is heading towards the vegetable tray separate but equal vs the tossed salad method originally envisioned. So calling out another example of “IR-baiting” is out of the picture.
I’d say more of a forgotten, unrespected track record, forgetting the past, as so many filmmakers of the last three decades seem to do. Sidney Poitier almost single-handedly made the IR theme his wheelhouse – “Patch of Blue” and “Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner.” The themes were necessarily the subject, in those days, so near the scalding coals of 60’s Civil Rights. Today, rather than being “past this” as a theme, the inevitability of IR relationships are more of a foregone conclusion, which is a mistake, since so much of the public out there still harbors its resentments to the topic. I’m not saying don’t make them at all, but let’s not gloss over elephants in the room, no matter the color, even in our current era of inclusivity. (I blame advertising for much of this – not for IR content, but because the ad world uses this as a two-fisted approach of insincerity – Virtue Signaling, and also cost-saving – advertisers now no longer need to make separate commercials depicting non-integrated families). A lot of the issues with IR casting these days is that the characters don’t “spark.” At least here JLaw and Brian have a connection that feels palpable and real, even though the almost mandatory gay thing neuters the issue still sensitive today – especially in the American South. I also blame the slowwwww direction – some say stagey, which is appropriate since the director comes from theater – for the feeling of enervation at the topic the audience surely feels. In theater the audiences would have been snoozing by act two, which this film prompts as well.
They ought to act like bros from this point on, but the trite romantic overtone persists and builds up to a kiss both characters instantly regret.And then wh’appen?*looks at photo of them in the pool*But did they smash tho?
“More recently in the West Wing”What is your definition of recent? The West Wing hasn’t been on the air in 16 years…
More recently than LA Law.
Very true.
This review makes the possibility of romance with Jennifer Lawrence sound rather dreary.
Passengers started that trend.
I’m willing to give it a try and report back.
Vaya con carne, amigo!
Hey, she was Darren Aronofsky’s girlfriend. It’s not like she only goes with hunks.
And it also proves she’ll date an asshole.
Glad I didn’t have a mouthful of coffee when I saw that!
I’m wondering if Elizabeth Sanders originated the story and then was assisted by Ottessa Moshfegh and Luke Goebel. Moshfegh is famously great with gritty stories and atmospheres (ex: Eileen), so I’m surprised this came out trite, though perhaps that was the core of the story inherited from Sanders (she is a debut writer here). Would love to see Moshfegh write something more in her lane of eerie, grimy, unsettling storytelling.
Thomasin McKenzie is going to be in a film adaptation of “Eileen”, and after “Leave No Trace” I’m not sure how consciously she’s trying to follow in Lawrence’s footsteps.
Interesting.
I’m still wrapping my head around the reality of suffering an injury in combat that required such extensive rehabilitation and recovery *because you want or need to be deployed again*. Christ that’s depressing.
If you’ve been geared to believe your best function is serving your unit in life and death circumstances, then by not doing so, there’s a degree of feeling useless.
It’s pretty much real life though. The military is often the only place for people with limited educational and vocational opportunities to excel. You might think it is depressing to want to go back to a combat zone, but it is often less depressing than realizing your other option is to stay stateside and work at McDonald’s or Walmart.
I know it’s probably embarrassing for a lot of them but I wish these types of people who fall especially hard into Cult 45 and QAnon worship would share this reality of American life and less the “Fuck your feelings libtard” bullshit; it makes them a lot easier to sympathize with than the “immigrants are stealing jobs I didn’t want or felt over-qualified for, so let’s torment them every way imaginable” message they prefer to put out. Don Jr always says vulnerability is for pussies anyway, right?
Nail on the head. The missing element here is the idea that the poor woman may also need therapy – an omission, in these days of constant reminders that we must Do The Work that turns most of JLaw’s “journey” into a “she wants to do it herself” lie.
I was just about to mention how Hollywood has a absolutely horrid track record of showing romantic interracial relationships between a black man/white woman. The author seems to have forgotten the pelican brief or the parody between Idris Alba and Julia Roberts on how that sort of pairing can’t be show in hollywood. Jessica Jones and Luke Cage are married with a kid in the comics, but they had to nip that in the bud right away in the Jessica Jones TV series. And you best believe we won’t see Captain Marvel and War Machine getting together in Armor Wars even though that’s been the longest relationship for Captain Marvel now (10 years and counting.) So the minute I saw the image above, I already know they weren’t going to be together. So the idea that a man/woman can’t have a platonic relationship in hollywood is completely erronous when you look at the fact that almost all BM/WF pairings showing are indeed platonic.We all know why, and it’s why I say certain IR couples have the most difficult time in terms of representation (Basically anything non-white male related.) They aren’t in a group like LGBT to call this the IR form of queer-baiting, and our society is heading towards the vegetable tray separate but equal vs the tossed salad method originally envisioned. So calling out another example of “IR-baiting” is out of the picture.
Sounds and looks boring af.
Some random thoughts:No idea why this was set in New Orleans. Surely L.A. has more swimming pools.Did anyone else’s captions go out halfway into the scene with her and her brother signing? Was that intentional? Felt really bizarre not to know what they were saying after having known what they were saying.Had not idea Moshfegh was involved with this until the end credits and would have never ever guessed. If I’d known I would’ve expected the main character to be much grosser.
None of the reviews I’ve seen have addressed what is often a component of such rehabilitations, and is covered under the VA – psychiatric/therapy assistance. Her doctor in the movie is a physician, and clearly, such an empathetic character would recommend psych eval and concurrent therapy with his own observation of her progress for anyone so injured who wants to jump back into the deep end of combat. For me this turned most of the movie into a lie by omission, in order to give us the “she wants to do it herself” Strong Woman. The cardboard cutout “character” of the absent mother didn’t help either, no matter the considerable strength of the actress bringing the part to life as much as she can. One true surprise was the scene with her brother at the end, signing their reunion conversation, both actors showing such love and understanding of their characters in a way that probably wouldn’t have happened if they’d picked up the phones and had the standard Prisoner Reconciliation conversation most movies would try. I was nearly mesmerized by JLaw’s subtle and incisive performance, but by Act 2 the glacial pace of the movie began to bog even her down. The director came from theater, and it’s unfortunate she didn’t bring the kind of vitality necessary on the boards to keep audience attention. Or maybe I’m exhausted from Trauma Drama that uses the subject alone as justification not to dive deeper into exploring characters beyond tropes.