It’s unusually comforting to see Jennifer Lawrence back in a more lower-key, but high character story and impact role, and because of that, Lila Neugebauer‘s Causeway is immediately on my list to watch, after seeing this first trailer.
In Causeway, Lawrence plays Lynsey, a military engineer who has returned to the States from Afghanistan with a debilitating brain injury after an IED explosion. After slowly relearning to walk and re-train her memory, aided by tender caretaker Sharon (Jayne Houdyshell), she then returns home to New Orleans to face even more painful memories, of her childhood.
While staying with her mother Gloria (Linda Emond) isn’t easy, she gets a job cleaning pools and meets James Aucoin (Brian Tyree Henry), who works at the auto repair shop and offers her a ride home. Slowly they start to rely on each other for company and solace. James, it turns out, is also suppressing his own past trauma.
Written by Ottessa Moshfegh, Luke Goebel and Elizabeth Sanders, the grief and tenderness here you can feel through the moments, take a watch:
critical popcorn 