Causeway

A film about a soldier's recovery after returning wounded from Afghanistan. Lynsey suffered a brain injury in an explosion. She is learning to walk, to speak and to manage daily tasks again. When the treatment ends she goes back to her mother's house in New Orleans. She does not want to stay; all she wants is to be redeployed. She takes a job cleaning pools. When her car breaks down she meets a mechanic named James. He has an accident in his past too and has lost a leg. The whole narrative is the friendship between these two. They talk, they swim together, they tell each other their pasts in small pieces. Neither rescues the other, and the film does not turn it into a love story. The telling is extremely plain: no incident, no crisis, no large revelation. The tension comes from whether a sentence is said or not. Jennifer Lawrence plays Lynsey and is also among the producers. Brian Tyree Henry plays James and was Oscar-nominated for it. It is Lila Neugebauer's first feature; she comes from the theatre. A strong example for anyone who likes quiet, sparse drama. For a viewer wanting incident, the film is almost entirely two people talking and the pace is deliberately low.