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Strong Performances Don’t Empower Quotidian PTSD Drama


Causeway was meant to be Apple TV+’s follow-up to CODA. Here’s another rather basic drama about an awards-bait-y theme featuring actors in just the right kind of performances of grounded seriousness that could net them Oscar nominations if campaigned in the right ways -and indeed that is what happened for one of them. But Causeway hasn’t had the same momentum as its’ bewilderingly successful predecessor. It came and went on its’ release like CODA, without much passionate conversation around it, but unlike CODA it hasn’t reappeared in the Academy’s voting results beyond a single nomination for Brian Tyree Henry that is well deserved for the exceptional actor but not at all one he’s likely to win.
Because of this general oversight I didn’t have the expectations going into Causeway as I did with CODA at the time of its’ then astonishing series of major nominations. But that didn’t endear me to the movie in the way it might have had the film been more ambitious. What it is is an actors’ showcase, dealing in a story that revolves around trauma and PTSD for the purposes of challenging the capacities of its’ stars without bringing much new to a topic that has been covered in film countless times before.
I’m not saying the movie is necessarily cynical for this. Plenty of great films are built more around gauging a particular performance from an actor than on any real merit of story or technique. In fact Jennifer Lawrence herself has done at least one film like that, 2015’s Joy. The thing is, nobody remembers Joy anymore, and the same is likely to be true of Causeway (despite being led by better performances than that film) the moment awards’ season ends.
It is the filmmaking debut of theatre director Lila Neugebauer, and her background with the stage can be gleaned by the fact she fills her supporting cast out with Tony-winner luminaries like Jayne Houdyshell, Linda Emond, and Stephen McKinley Henderson. But at the centre of the film is Jennifer Lawrence as Lynsey, an Afghan War vet in recovery for a brain injury sustained during an IED explosion, in New Orleans where she struggles to adjust to civilian life again -depressed and eager to re-enlist against the recommendations of her doctor. As she’s going through this she happens to befriend an auto-mechanic James (Henry), himself haunted by a tragic car accident that resulted in the death of his nephew and the loss of his leg.
The relationship between Lynsey and James is the heart of the movie, and by far where it is most successful and distinct. That specific and consciously underplayed bond between survivors of trauma is well articulated here in how the pair form a relatively quick understanding while still not exactly being on the same page. For instance James appears to be at least mildly romantically interested in Lynsey, which it takes a little while for her to gently shoot down (she’s gay in fact). They’re not completely honest with each other for understandable reasons, and this rift that remains between them and their experiences ultimately comes out in conflict and heightened emotions. Lawrence and Henry have good chemistry, something they apparently worked on for months in quarantine before shooting commenced, and it’s a believable, complex relationship for this.
There is a range to their personalities dependent on mood or intoxication, and it seems especially apparent with James. Those silent, despondent moments where he is mentally trapped in that painful memory are probably what got Henry his awards acknowledgements this cycle. He really plays so vividly the enduring presence of his trauma and the horrifying guilt threatening to consume him. But while Henry is the sharper stand-out, Lawrence also manages to give her best performance in several years as the hollowed-out vet trying to cope with a few different issues she keeps under her belt. The script doesn’t quite allow us to feel her pain and she’s generally quite detached, but Lawrence nonetheless taps into a resonant behavioural type, a quiet desperation for purpose and peace of mind. The movie marks her first as producer as well as star -indicating a greater conviction, and it does show through.
However beyond these performances the film is oftentimes inert. Neugebauer doesn’t offer much in the way of sharp cinematic direction, her focus is understandably more towards the actors than the framing or editing -each of which is perfectly competent and uncompelling; there’s little creativity in the way the plot is laid out, and the story itself, grounded though it may be, is uninspired. Several movies and countless documentaries have taken on the theme of PTSD and veterans re-entering civilian life -even in relation to tours in Afghanistan specifically. And while it’s a very multi-faceted topic with evergreen arenas to explore, Causeway doesn’t approach it from any original vantage point -and adds little to the conversation that hasn’t been articulated better by other movies or in other forms. The relationship between Lynsey and James is the only curious facet to an otherwise stale story, and even that is fairly nebulous to the specificity of her experience. It doesn’t have much a comment to make on the war or veterans, stays strictly apolitical as much as it can, and even avoids those devices that might create a starker picture of what she’s going through –no flashbacks, no psychological tremors, just a kind of aimless frustration. The result is a slog of a plot buoyed only by performances that hint at deep characterization without a narrative willing to back them up; and that comes to the most obvious resolution it could possibly conceive.
Despite the differences in what they went through the movie seems to equate both Lynsey and James’ traumas by frequently bringing them up against one another, though of course giving her recovery the greater attention; tying it into a more concerted purpose whilst what he went through was just an accident. James does have the more intriguing experience, the one that makes for more unconventional drama, and a better movie might have reversed their roles with regards to emphasis. Of course in truth they can’t be compared, and on some level the movie understands this as well –it’s a cornerstone to the close yet cautious relationship that develops between them. There’s a strange disconnect here between the subjective and objective lenses of the script and I wonder if it might just be a case of Neugebauer misunderstanding it in her execution. Whatever the idea it goes through a rough translation.
A handful of scenes in Causeway are well worth watching, mostly for Lawrence and especially Henry. In some respects, it is a quieter, measured, less chaotic and more respectable version of another Apple TV+ movie about a war vet, Cherry. But it is still a version, and these kind of movies need more ingenuity and perspective to be engaging. There’s only so far that actors’ laurels can take it.

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