Causeway
Written by Andreas Babiolakis
Throughout the awards season, we’ll get around to some much-discussed films that we didn’t previously review.
The first film from Lila Neugebauer, Causeway, feels like a little portfolio of what the director is capable of, but it doesn’t seem like a complete picture at all. What begins and carries on as a strong character study appears to finish before it even reaches a sizeable third act climax. It’s a damn shame, because so much works in favour of the film. It dives deeply into the mind of character Lynsey: a solder that has returned home after experiencing brain trauma and injury. She wants to be redeployed back to Afghanistan, and is rather hostile and cold to everyone else around her, including her mother. She befriends a mechanic names James who is also experiencing a tough time with readjusting to society as a recent amputee. It is their bond that is at the core of Causeway and gets it really running, because the film felt rather empty beforehand. Now, there is a heartbeat that you can actually feel: this friendship where each person extracts the best qualities of the other.
This friendship actually becomes complicated, and just as things are starting to get really interesting (conflict erupts, souls get crushed, and guilt overtakes both Lynsey and James), Causeway just ends. Its final shot is one that asks “what now?” instead of “what happens next?”. There’s a very big difference between a well constructed, ambiguous ending that leaves you thinking, and an abrupt conclusion that feels like a blindside. This feels more like a chapter or two of a much larger book, or two episodes of a long running series, not a fully developed indie picture, and you can only wonder if this incredibly condensed picture was the result of a limited budget that would constrict the ideas necessary for something more substantial. It sours what I was feeling like was a solid independent feature, and it’s actually enough to tarnish the entire film and render it worthy of only one watch.
Jennifer Lawrence and Brian Tyree Henry are sensational in Causeway.
It’s a disservice to Jennifer Lawrence, who has gone back to her dramatic, indie roots here as Lynsey (and is incredibly moving as a lone wolf dealing with internal turmoil), and also to Brian Tyree Henry who has finally been given a major-enough role in a film where he can showcase his full capabilities (he’s sensational as James, and the minor glimpses of heartbreak that he exudes from the smallest changes in his expression are all I need to know that he is a generational star). The two performers together are sublime to watch, and the world seemingly stops around them when they are mid conversation. Another shoutout goes to Alex Somers, whose ambient score carries the emotional weight of Causeway on its minimalist shoulders and actually moved me from time to time. I almost don’t feel right commenting on much else because of how much Causeway feels like a film that is still being made and not a finished release, but it is worth watching at least for this trifecta of quality. It’s not that everything else here is bad (I’d argue that nothing is, really): it’s just that Causeway finishes before we get acquainted enough with the rest of the picture.
Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Toronto Metropolitan University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.