Before her comeback with Don't Look Up, Jennifer Lawrence was pretty open about the act that she hadn't been on the best run. "I was not pumping out the quality that I should have," she admitted in November 2021, and it's hard to disagree.
Lawrence has always been a compelling screen presence even if the likes of Passengers, mother! and Red Sparrow were divisive at best and downright awful at worst. Don't Look Up allowed Lawrence to let loose and was a step in the right direction, but it's her new movie Causeway that officially marks her return to the top.
Directed by Lila Neugebauer, the drama sees Lawrence play military engineer Lynsey who has returned to the US from Afghanistan with a debilitating brain injury following an IED explosion. When she returns home to New Orleans, she not only has to face her new reality, but also her memories.
It's the kind of set-up that screams Oscar bait and you can picture several emotionally dramatic moments perfect for an awards clip. Yet the brilliance of Causeway is that it's anything but that movie you're imagining.
We love to see Lawrence go big as much as anybody, such as her outbursts in Don't Look Up or the intensity of Katniss in the Hunger Games series. Here though, she plays against type with a quiet, unshowy and thoughtful performance, where more is said in the silence than any monologue could do.
Much like with the scars left from her childhood, Lynsey chooses to approach her PTSD with something close to ignorance. She's determined to get back to war to escape her childhood home and fraught relationship with her mother (Linda Emond), regardless of the extra damage it could do to her.
But before she can get back to the war, Lynsey meets local mechanic James (an excellent Brian Tyree Henry) who is suppressing his own personal trauma. As their connection builds into a friendship, they could each prove to be just the person the other needs to come to terms with their history.
The friendship between Lynsey and James forms the core of the majority of Causeway's plot, with the stars' easy chemistry overcoming any issues with the slightness of the story. It's a movie where the emotion slowly creeps up on you, rather than hitting in waves, as you fully invest in the duo.
By contrast, Lynsey's relationship with her mother is thinly sketched. We learn that her mother lets her down a lot, but that's about it. We find more out about the carer that Lynsey works with at the beginning of the movie, so it's a shame that the family side of Lynsey's past isn't developed more.
Causeway has no easy answers or clean resolutions to offer its audience, a smart decision when trauma has no definitive ending for many. Instead, it shows there's no 'correct' way to process it and in Jennifer Lawrence, the movie couldn't have hoped for a better lead performance to guide the way.
How to watch Causeway online at home
If you fancy checking it out, Causeway is available to watch right now on Apple TV+ for all subscribers.
The streaming service costs £6.99 a month to sign up for if you're not already a subscriber. You also get a seven-day free trial so you could watch Causeway for free and cancel your subscription if you don't fancy anything else Apple TV+ has to offer.
If you do stick around though, we've got you covered with everything that's available to watch right now and the best TV shows to catch up with.
Causeway is available to watch now on Apple TV+.
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