A film nominated for Bryan Tyree Henry’s performance, Causeway is about a woman who is sent home from Afghanistan for brain trauma. Her issues include memory loss as well as PTSD symptoms such as flashbacks. The character then moves home to live with her mom while she recovers and befriends a local.
Causeway is one of those films I expected more from. I feel like I say this frequently. It’s good, but maybe the layers I was able to witness were limited.
Lawrence’s performance is also pretty good, but not exceptional. Lawrence does show an ability to bring more to her characters, which was missing from her previous performances, but I think the subtlety is a kind of under-performance. As for Henry’s performance, though I did notice the difference from his usual character work in Atlanta and thought it was a decent role, I’m not sure I agree it was Oscar-worthy.
My Favourite Parts of the Movie
The backdrop of New Orleans and the way the character goes through her daily life are probably my favourite parts. Movies are so often set against a green screen or filmed in Canada as a pretense to NYC these days, so it’s an inviting surprise to me when a film is on the right location. We get to see the busted sidewalks, the little corner ice cream shops, the imperfect roads. As much as any other part of a film, this brings it to life too.
Least Favourite Parts
Honestly, the relationship she has with James. It just doesn’t give me any kind of feeling. We find out how they’re both wounded and perhaps that kind of wounding looks for similarity in others. However, it never strikes me as a relationship that either care about. It feels like when you stumble into someone and you continuously meet up with them just because they’re the only one you know in town.
Now granted, that could be a beneficial relationship regardless, so I’m not saying that there aren’t possibilities to that kind of friendship. And perhaps it’s exactly the kind they both needed at this point in time. It just felt like they were stumbling towards each other from unfamiliar, weird angles rather than similar wounding.
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