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Causeway Movie Review

Causeway is a 2022 independent drama film directed by Lila Neugebauer and starring Jennifer Lawrence and Brian Tyree Henry. It is a wonderfully subtle, moving indie.

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“Aren’t your tits sweating?

Get your ass in this pool“

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Lynsey, a U.S. soldier, experiences a traumatic brain injury during her tour in Afghanistan which forces her to return home. She struggles to return to her daily life with her mother as she waits for her eventual redeployment. She then meets a man who has PTSD from a car accident and the two strike an unlikely friendship. We all know where all of this is going, and although the nature of their relationship remains ambiguous throughout, the ending itself was predictable.

With that being said, how we arrive to that ending is quite powerful. This is one nuanced, subdued drama that lacks big explosive moments with only one sequence containing a fight between the two characters. That scene was terrific and beautifully acted, but the more subtle and calmer moments were nonetheless the highlights in this very sweet, grounded drama.

Easily the best reason to see this movie is for its acting performances. Jennifer Lawrence has been absent from Hollywood for a couple of years and finally she is back. Her ‘Don’t Look Up’ role was only okay, but this is the role that she was born to play, being reminiscent to her early indie roots. As a woman who went to war to escape her town and her disappointing life, Lawrence sold that disappointment and that feeling of not fitting in superbly. The movie not sending her back to war was a phenomenal choice in a story that makes a point about the kindness of strangers having the potential to change your life.

But Brian Tyree Henry is just as great as Lawrence in a deservedly Oscar-nominated performance. I could have gone without his excessive mumbling, but still his performance is powerful in its understated realism and casualness. He feels like a genuinely real person, which was important for this authentically grounded story.

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Causeway is also solidly directed by first time director Lila Neugebauer, but it features only serviceable technical aspects, though the New Orleans setting produced some gorgeous scenery. It’s a slowly paced movie that is still gripping due to amazing dialogue and characters you care about.