It’s been a long time coming for Jennifer Lawrence’s soldier drama Causeway. Shot three years ago, delayed by both the pandemic and abuse allegations against producer Scott Rudin, the film was acquired by Apple and finally made its world premiere at Toronto. And now it’s finally got a trailer ahead of its release in November.
Causeway pairs Lawrence with director Lila Neugebauer for the story of a military vet returning home from Afghanistan with debilitating injuries and PTSD after an IED explosion. Lawrence is joined by Brian Tyree Henry who plays a fellow soldier with the same affliction, the two bonding over their shared experience.
Also in the cast are Linda Emond, Stephen McKinley Henderson, and Jayne Houdyshell.
Causeway will hit select theaters and stream on Apple TV+ on November 4th. It will also play next week at the Middleburg Film Festival!
It’s a painful and slow recovery as she relearns to walk and re-trains her memory, aided by a chatty but tender caretaker (Jayne Houdyshell). But when she returns home to New Orleans she has to face memories even more aching and formative than those she had in service: a reckoning with her childhood.
Staying with her mother (Linda Emond), with whom she shares a tense relationship, all Lynsey wants to do is return to her work as an engineer. Her doctor (Stephen McKinley Henderson) is wary, and so in the meantime, she gets a job cleaning pools. When her truck breaks down she meets James Aucoin (Brian Tyree Henry), who works at the auto repair shop and offers her a ride home. Slowly they start to rely on each other for company and solace. James, it turns out, is also suppressing his own past trauma.
These two damaged souls’ budding friendship forms the center and the heart of Neugebauer’s debut feature—a quiet but devastating, and ultimately uplifting, story about coming to terms and moving forward.
