{"id":9774,"date":"2023-02-12T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-02-12T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/?p=9774"},"modified":"2023-02-12T09:17:30","modified_gmt":"2023-02-12T14:17:30","slug":"causeway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/2023\/02\/12\/causeway\/","title":{"rendered":"Causeway."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Causeway<\/em> is a solid little film, and I mean that in a very positive way. It reminded me a ton of Columbus<\/a><\/em>, the 2017 debut feature from Kogonada (whose After Yang<\/em> I still need to catch up with); and of Driveways<\/em>, maybe a little bit because of the similar names. It\u2019s not quite as good as either of those movies, as the script itself is thinner and less credible, but like those two films, it\u2019s anchored by two outstanding performances by its leads. (It\u2019s streaming on Apple TV<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jennifer Lawrence plays Lynsey, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan who suffered a traumatic brain injury when an IED hit her convoy, forcing her to come back to the U.S. for rehabilitation. She\u2019s struggling with all aspects of the injury, including accepting that she can\u2019t return to combat immediately once she\u2019s regained most of her physical functions. After she has a panic attack in traffic and damages the car from her temp job cleaning pools, she befriends the owner of the garage where she takes it, James (Brian Tyree Henry), and the two form an unlikely, platonic friendship where the two talk through their problems and fears with each other in a way that Lynsey certainly can\u2019t do with her family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like the two other films I mentioned above, Causeway<\/em> is a talkie \u2013 if you don\u2019t like movies that are about 90% dialogue, this probably isn\u2019t for you. I am very much in the target demographic for that sort of film, because they often feel to me like well-written novels or novellas, and I\u2019m perfectly happy to spend an hour and a half with two interesting characters even if there isn\u2019t much action or romance. There\u2019s no action here, and the closest thing to romance is a failure \u2013 which is good because it\u2019s not the least bit credible when it does happen. It\u2019s two people, each haunted by trauma, having honest and realistic conversations about themselves, revealing their feelings by degrees, holding things back as people do when dealing with guilt and shame.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Henry was nominated for Best Supporting Actor for his work here, and he\u2019s deserving. He\u2019s been an actor to watch for years now, making huge impressions in Widows<\/a> <\/em>and If Beale Street Could Talk<\/a><\/em>. I\u2019m thrilled to see him get a leading role (regardless of the Supporting tag, he\u2019s the co-lead here) and to get recognition for his film work after he\u2019s received two Emmy nominations for his work on Atlanta<\/em>. Lawrence is predictably strong here in a role that\u2019s more understated than much of her previous work, including three of the four times she\u2019s earned an Oscar nomination, which might have worked against her here. I did find it funny when the owner of the pool-cleaning company asks if her character is \u201chome from college,\u201d since Lawrence is 32, although she does look pretty young in the film because of how they dress the character.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bar for a film like this to clear to be a truly great movie is pretty high \u2013 it\u2019s like how a corner outfielder just has to hit that much more to be a potential star. I don\u2019t think Causeway <\/em>clears it. There are aspects of the relationship between James and Lynsey that aren\u2019t entirely credible, and there\u2019s a part of her back story that is never adequately explained given its prominence in her character\u2019s current state. The film also favors Lynsey over James too much, rather than giving the two characters equal weight in the script and in the way they help each other, which unfortunately opens the film to criticism that James\u2019 character is the \u201cmagical\u201d Black man there to help the white lead. (I don\u2019t think it applies, but I concede the possibility that I\u2019m wrong.) Instead, Causeway<\/em> is merely very good, a film of modest ambitions that largely achieves them, and that\u2019s worth watching on its own merits and for what Henry and Lawrence bring.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Causeway is a solid little film, and I mean that in a very positive way. It reminded me a ton of Columbus, the 2017 debut feature from Kogonada (whose After Yang I still need to catch up with); and of Driveways, maybe a little bit because of the similar names. It\u2019s not quite as good […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1290,1331,215],"class_list":["post-9774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-2022-movies","tag-2023-best-supporting-actor-nominees","tag-movies","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9774"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9776,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9774\/revisions\/9776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meadowparty.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}