Review - Causeway

Directed by: Lila Neugebauer
Written by: Elizabeth Sanders, Luke Goebel, Ottessa Moshfegh
Starring: Jennifer Lawrence, Brian Tyree Henry 
Running Time: 92 minutes
Rating: 1.5/5

Jennifer Lawerence stars as Lynsey a veteran suffering from a traumatic brain injury after her return from Afghanistan as a result of an IED explosion. When returning to New Orleans she strikes a friendship with James, Brian Tyree Henry, as she struggles to return to a normal life. I will say this right up front I did not like this movie. Lila Neugebauer tries hard to convey sympathy for Jennifer Lawrence’s character and her situation but it just falls flat. It doesn’t help that the script is predictable and grasping for emotional beats, having certain things happen throughout that feel forced or obvious. The one thing I found interesting about this was the lack of character I felt from the city. New Orleans was supposed to play a key part of the surroundings of these characters but the city feels more like a backdrop rather than a character or immersive setting. For example a series such as Treme does a much better job of making New Orleans feel like a real place. Even the movie Chef does a better job of this and those characters are in the city of all of 5 minutes.

Lawrence and Henry are good together however and their relationship seems real which is a plus in the movie. I actually found Henry to be the most interesting character in this entire movie but even then he seemed a bit bored with the material, a lot of time leaning against a beer bottle. Lawrence herself doesn’t even seem that invested, and I was expecting a lot more, especially from someone so talented. It could have been the direction but there were a lot of scenes where she played the character with glossed over eyes and a “I’m fine” expression which pretty much sums up how I feel about her performance. The film is also quite slow, there is no flashbacks to her experience in the field or the aftermath in hospital. It also just doesn’t seem realistic in terms of the injuries she suffers from the IED explosion from but that is something you could also argue against as you never know and is more of a nitpick of mine.

As well for a budget this large it might have had one of the worst in car driving sequences that was clearly shot against a volume or LED wall. I couldn’t tell exactly and it could have been the colour correction but it felt so fake right in the middle of the movie and with something like that I don’t see how it wasn’t possible to just film the two driving around on a car rig. It took me right out of the film and all I could concentrate on was that.

“It could have been the direction but there were a lot of scenes where she played the character with glossed over eyes and a “I’m fine” expression which pretty much sums up how I feel about her performance. ”

I wish this film wasn’t so predictable, and I wonder if the film did not have the star power behind it, would people be even talking about it? And would it have gotten into TIFF. My answer is no. Apple won’t be winning best picture again this year.