Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Causeway’ on Apple TV+, a Quiet and Contemplative Drama Pairing Jennifer Lawrence and Brian Tyree Henry

Causeway (now on Apple TV+) gives us an inspired pairing: Needs-no-introduction Jennifer Lawrence with close-to-not-needing-an-introduction Brian Tyree Henry (TV: Atlanta; film: Bullet Train, Eternals, Godzilla vs. Kong). She plays a war veteran back home after a serious injury, he plays a lonely owner of a car repair shop, and they form an unusual friendship that may offer both of them a little respite from their pain.

CAUSEWAY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Blank stares. That’s about all Lynsey (Lawrence) can summon right now. She’s rolled in a wheelchair to a car and Sharon (Jayne Houdyshell) will take her to an assisted-living home and take care of her. Lynsey appears… traumatized? For sure. Paralyzed? Somewhat – we’ll eventually learn that she suffered a brain injury when the truck she was in was blown up in Afghanistan. She can’t use the toilet on her own, can barely walk, can’t brush her teeth without assistance. Sharon is patient, a sweetheart; she helps Lynsey in the middle of the night when a panic attack hits. Time passes. Lynsey can walk, jog, drive and talk now. Sharon says she helped someone – a husband or son or loved one, it’s implied – for years and then decided to pursue a living helping military veterans rehabilitate. “What a miserable life,” Lynsey says, the words escaping before they’re connected to a thought. But it’s OK. Sharon knows this happens.

Lynsey takes a long bus ride home to New Orleans. Sharon told her to write things down so she won’t forget things; it’ll take a lot of work to do what she used to do. She gets off the bus and waits for her mother, who doesn’t show. She takes another bus, walks a bit, finds the spare key under a brick, lets herself in and finds a bed. Mom (Linda Emond) thought she was getting back Friday, and you get the impression Mom lets her down often. Lynsey gets a job cleaning swimming pools, and then the truck she’s driving – her mom’s – breaks down. She takes it to James’ (Henry) garage, and then he gives her a ride home. It’s hot out. Hot hot hot. He’s a nice guy.

Did I mention Lynsey wants to redeploy? Even after all that? She told Sharon, who was gently skeptical. She tells her doctor (Stephen McKinley Henderson), who wears a look of disbelief and says she’s not ready. She eventually tells James, because they’re hanging out now, and he maybe wants to say You’re crazy but doesn’t, and there’s a point where they’re sitting on a bench smoking weed and having beers on a hot summer night and he says, “If it gets dark, just ride it.” He’s just told her why he has a prosthetic leg, and how he used to be engaged, and now he lives in a big house by himself, and that’s what he says. “If it gets dark, just ride it.” It’s been dark for both of them.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: This is Lawrence’s most intimate film since her breakthrough, Winter’s Bone.

Performance Worth Watching: Lawrence and Henry find an unusual, odd-meter rhythm in their exchanges, which keeps us from settling into a comfortable groove. Lawrence has more screen time and therefore leaves a larger crater, but Henry makes the most of his role, further cementing his diversity as an actor.

Memorable Dialogue: Lynsey asks her doctor a pertinent question: “What if Afghanistan wasn’t the only trauma?”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: I don’t know if we as a society are more aware of trauma and its effects, and therefore more movies explore the subject, or if movies have been exploring it all along and we’re just now figuring out how to define it. But it seems like the subject matter du jour lately, and if you believe that art reflects life, you’ll find plenty of purchase for that seed in the trend. This isn’t to trivialize pain and suffering and its profound effects on the human mind, or any artist’s desire to explore it in film, but it’s easy to feel weary from the weight of a movie like Causeway, which is pure in intention, and unfailingly sincere, but frequently stifling in its solemnity.

Lawrence often is asked to fill long, silent passages with subtle nonverbals as Lynsey works through the shock of her condition. Lynsey lightly prods James to open up, and Henry overplays it a little, being ever so slightly too mindful of the character and his quirks, his dramatic pauses, the flair with which he smokes a joint. Causeway is very much an actor’s showcase, director Lila Neugebauer providing Lawrence and Henry with opportunities to transcend the screenplay’s more mundane elements. And it’s at its most mundane during a major dramatic sequence, a turning point in the plot that feels overwrought, too contrived in its inevitability, as if something needs to happen in this story, even when it doesn’t.

But the screenplay’s occasional stumbles don’t undermine the poignancy of its ideas, and the way it portrays the harsh realities of post-traumatic psychological struggle. It also shows no desire to define Lynsey and James’ friendship in simple terms. It wriggles from the grasp of easy definition; sometimes the most meaningful relationships do that.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Causeway is a small, contemplative film boasting typically thoughtful work from its gifted leads. It won’t blow you away with its twists and turns and insights, and can be a little too humorless for its own good, but it shows enough dramatic heft to warrant a watch.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com.