OSCARS 2023: Causeway (2022)

One hesitates to say anything bad about Jennifer Lawrence. She is, after all, one of the most successful actresses of the modern era and, ostensibly, still is a beloved, popular star. And yet... Like so many critics and film fans, I was blown away by Lawrence's performance in "Winter's Bone." However, most of her acting after ascending up the Hollywood A-List has seriously underwhelmed me. Her work in big franchise films, like "The Hunger Games" and "X-Men" series, often veered into the somnambulant. Meanwhile, in increasingly lame awards bait, she began to grotesquely overact. I think I officially stopped being a Lawrence fan after her shockingly terrible performance in "American Hustle." It didn't help that her #Relatable antics quickly started to feel overbearing after a while. After several busy years, Lawrence would kind of disappeared. The actress herself would admit that she wasn't really giving those blockbuster roles her all and decided to be more choosy with her projects from now on. Lawrence's 2022 comeback project — if you can say that a still very famous person like her truly ever went away — was "Causeway." An Apple TV exclusive, the emotive drama would be primed as a major awards contender at one point before largely vanishing from the conversation. However, the Academy did end up giving the movie a surprise nomination. Not for Lawrence but for her co-star, Brian Tyree Henry.

Lawrence stars as Lynsey, a U.S. military veteran. While deployed in Afghanistan as a dam engineer, her Jeep was exploded by an IED. This would leave Lynsey with a traumatic brain injury, that left her physically crippled for a time. While still traumatized and heavily medicated, she moves back into her childhood home, reigniting old issues with her mother and absentee brother. Struggling to put her life back together, she naively hopes to get well enough to return to the military. Along the way, she forms an unusual friendship with James, a local mechanic with a tragedy of his own in his past.

"Causeway" is, if nothing else, a return to the aesthetic of "Winter's Bone" for Lawrence. (Who also produced, with Lila Neugebauer in the director's chair.) By which I mean it's an incredibly understated drama with humble goals, about real people in difficult situations. In fact, "Causeway" might be a little too understated. It's a very quiet film, with no use for histrionics. The troubled history Lynsey has with her mother is only hinted at. Her sexuality —she's gay — only comes up once, a topic that probably could've been explored a little more. Her relationship with her brother, a drug dealer and addict, is only expounded on through dialogue. In fact,  almost the entire movie is composed of people sitting around a suburb of New Orleans, talking about their lives. While most Oscar dramas are overlong and bloated, "Causeway" runs a svelte ninety-two minutes. Yet this is a film that might've benefited from a little more time. We feel like we only get a peek at these characters' lives sometimes, the movie giving us a beguiling but somewhat vague idea of who they are and what they've been through. 

However, I must applaud "Causeway" for being committed to its theme of recovery and what that really means. We get the impression about Lynsey that she mostly defined herself by her role in the military. (Another idea that could've been expanded on.) For her, recovery means getting right back to the place she was before her injury, which means deploying again. Yet it quickly becomes clear that this won't be easy. Sometimes, her hands shake and she drops things, an occurrence in one of the best scenes in the film. She argues with her doctor about medication, fearful that she's on too much yet having side effects without it. James, meanwhile, is an amputee from a horrible car wreck, which left serious emotional scars too. For both these people, there is no returning to their old lives. "Recovery" means finding some sort of peace with the changes in their bodies and with the lives they've tried to leave behind. The typically quiet — some would even say underdone — conclusion to this arc is, nevertheless, touching in its own way.

If "Causeway" has a frustrating tendency of keeping some of its ideas too interior, it does still manage to be a showcase for Lawrence and Henry's acting prowess. The way Lawrence subtly trembles with fear while driving for the first time since the incident is effective. Her body language, controlled and determined not to appear vulnerable, does a lot of lifting here. It's absolutely a return of the quiet, concise talent we saw in "Winter's Bone," even if it feels like Lawrence is trying to fill out a character that was left underwritten by the script. Henry, meanwhile, does largely steal the show. He's immediately charming, having an affable chemistry with Lawrence from their first moment together. He plays a seriously good guy, who does his best to protect people who need it, even if they don't want to admit that. Both performers get fantastic monologues, describing their accidents in gripping detail, in singular, sustained shots, that suggest both have lived with this pain for quite a while. The emotional climax of the film comes a little early, when the two jump into the pool together. (There's a lot of water imagery in the movie, connecting with the titular metaphor that never quite comes together.) Lynsey and James end up getting into an argument, the tension often felt between them rising to the surface. It's the only time the carefully guarded emotion in "Causeway" really expresses itself and it's a cathartic, powerful moment.

"Causeway" can't be an altogether satisfying experience. The subplot about Lynsey's brother is resolved in an especially half-assed manner. It feels like the movie ends just when it's starting to get going. I know, I complain when Oscar movies are too long and too melodramatic. Here comes a movie that is short and quiet, while tactfully handling serious, real world issues in a mature and reflective way. And I still bitch about it. But there has to be some sort of middle ground between the two poles. I'm glad Jennifer Lawrence is back to doing this style of acting in this style it movie. "Causeway" is definitely a good, thoughtful film that I would recommend. Yet I think, with a few changes and a little expansion, it really could've been a lot more than it is. [7/10]