In "Causeway," Jennifer Lawrence and Brian Tyree Henry play a pair of unlikely friends who share a bond forged over mutual loneliness.
It's a quiet, low-key drama that doesn't announce itself in any particular way, but has a way of sneaking up on you before you realize it.
Lawrence is Lynsey, back home in New Orleans after suffering a brain injury while deployed in Afghanistan. Her goal is to rehabilitate as quickly as possible, get a doctor's clearance and return to the military, where she feels useful and things make sense.
Things don't make sense in New Orleans, where she has a fractured relationship with her mother Gloria (Linda Emond), and no real ties to anyone or anything. She takes a job as a pool cleaner just to earn some money and pass the time.
Henry is James, the mechanic who is fixing her truck after its engine conks out. He offers to give her a ride and the two form a friendship, and slowly learn about one another's lives, quirks and personalities.
This isn't showy, big fireworks stuff, and it settles nicely into its rhythms. Director Lila Neugebauer, making her feature film debut, lets it flow and unfold naturally, uninterrupted. It plays out as a little slice of life.
Lawrence and Henry find a comfortable cadence in their performances, and the way their characters talk, move and dance around one another. Revelations don't come freely, they're earned. Feelings bubble to the surface. And what starts as a relationship of convenience becomes something more complicated as their connection deepens.
"Causeway" doesn't follow a familiar path, but then life doesn't, either. The joy is in the journey.
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'CAUSEWAY'
Grade: B+
MPAA rating: R (for some language, sexual references and drug use)
Running time: 1:32
How to watch: Apple TV+
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