Jennifer Lawrence ended her mini-acting hiatus with Don’t Look Up, but it was hard to stand out in the satire because the cast was loaded with other A-list talents, like Leonardo DiCaprio and Cate Blanchett. In Causeway, though, she’s front and center.
The A24 and Apple Original Films drama is described as an “intimate portrait of a soldier struggling to adjust to her life after returning home to New Orleans.” After years of contractually obligated franchises, it’s nice to see Lawrence returning to smaller, more personal indies that bring to mind Winter’s Bone, the movie that launched her career.
Causeway premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival where it received positive reviews, particularly for Lawrence and her co-star, Atlanta and Widows great Brian Tyree Henry. “It’s a part that suits Lawrence,” Vulture‘s Alison Willmore wrote in her review, “allowing her to lean into unfussy, intimate work, especially in the scenes where she shares the screen with an absolutely phenomenal Brian Tyree Henry, who plays James, an auto shop owner who’s experienced a life-changing injury and loss of his own.”
Directed by theatre veteran Lila Neugebauer in her feature-length debut, Causeway premieres in select theaters and on Apple TV+ on November 4.