1/24/23 - Causeway (2022) - 5/10

A fairly boilerplate tale of an injured contractor’s return home to New Orleans from Afghanistan. She struggles to recuperate, reconnect with her disparate family unit, and make her way in her new life, while meeting a friend with his own issues trying to get by. Lawrence is the protagonist here and gives a subtle performance, but there also could be questions about how lively or interesting the character she is working with is. She has nice moments of sincerity and a sought for human connection, but the film never has the cutting bite or deep moments of joy or sadness. She just kind of floats along, struggling to make waves in this pool of possibilities.

Honestly, I watched this film because Bryan Tyree Henry was nominated for an Academy Award. I kept my eye on him closely and found his performance naturalistic and tender, though it is the quiet and less-assuming performance that generally gets unacknowledged at awards season. He was good and provided the pathway toward the most engagement with the drama, the setting, and the characters. I am glad he got nominated, but it isn’t the bleeding off the screen kind of performance that he had in the underrated If Beale Street Could Talk. Make up nom or not, he is deserving.

There isn’t much to really shake you with this film, but I would point to one scene that stood out. Lawrence is guilty and lost and goes to meet her estranged brother who is in prison. Russell Harvard, who you might recognize as one of the assassins on Fargo (the show, not the film), delivers a gripping, emotionally full, and momentum-igniting turn in his 3-5 minutes of screen time. Nothing is made of his deafness before or after, and it allows for a stirring and emotive dialogue between these two wounded siblings through the confines of the glass. THAT was my favorite performance of the film and the most emotionally engaging scene.

Causeway doesn’t really give you much cause to see it honestly, but it is a solid workmanlike tight 90 that you could envision being much more stirring and intense or much more sappy and TV movie; it is in fact the average porridge right in the middle.