Jennifer Lawrence stars as a veteran readjusting to home life in New Orleans in the movie"Causeway."
However, Jennifer Lawrence is the film’s primary interest as Lynsey, the aforementioned veteran who has suffered a traumatic brain injury after an explosion. Numbed, closed off and dealing with some serious physical disabilities, she first rehabs in the residence of a gentle but practical home health care provider who literally gets her back on her feet.
As a film, “Causeway” is perhaps too cautious and oblique about the story it wants to tell. Is it about the struggle for veterans to re-acclimate Stateside? Sort of, but Lynsey reveals almost nothing about her time in the military. Is it about returning to a place that feels like the ghost town of your soul and forging new and unlikely connections? Yes, but it’s maybe too hands-off in that regard.
Pain and guilt and unresolved anger can become so embedded they shape the way you interact with the world. Maybe getting to know a stranger can feel like a reprieve. Here’s someone who doesn’t view you through the prism of your history; you are the person who stands before them, not an accumulation of your past. That’s what the movie seems to be getting at most effectively, particularly when it comes to James and why he might be drawn to Lynsey.