For much of the 2010s, Jennifer Lawrence was one of the biggest movie stars in the world — starring in blockbusters like The Hunger Games franchise and being nominated and winning awards, including an Oscar Best Actress trophy. However, in Lawrence’s new movie, Causeway, she is returning to the world of indie dramas that helped launch her career.
Despite its indie feel, this 2022 new movie is going to be widely available for audiences to watch. Here’s what you need to know about that and everything else involved with Causeway.
Causeway release date
Causeway arrives in both movie theaters and the Apple TV Plus streaming service on November 4.
This is just one of the many high-profile Apple TV Plus movies coming in the last few months of 2022, as Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell have the holiday musical Spirited and Will Smith’s next movie, Emancipation, are premiering on the streaming service.
Causeway plot
Written by Ottessa Moshfegh, Luke Goebel and Elizabeth Sanders, Causeway is described as an intimate portrait of a soldier struggling to adjust to her life after returning home to New Orleans.
Here is a more detailed synopsis:
Lynsey, a military engineer, has returned to the States from Afghanistan with a debilitating brain injury after an IED explosion.
It's a painful and slow recovery as she relearns to walk and re-trains her memory, aided by a chatty but tender caretaker. 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, with whom she shares a tense relationship, all Lynsey wants to do is return to her work as an engineer. Her doctor is wary, and so in the meantime, she gets a job cleaning pools. When her truck breaks down she meets James Aucoin, 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.
Causeway trailer
Ahead of the movie's release on November 4, Apple released a second trailer for Causeway that puts a spotlight on the performances of Lawrence and Brian Tyree Henry and their characters' relationship. Give it a watch below, as well as the first trailer for the movie:
Who is in the Causeway cast?
Jennifer Lawrence leads Causeway as the ex-soldier Lynsey. While Lawrence is best known to most for her roles as either Katniss Everdeen in The Hunger Games, Mystique in the X-Men franchise or in her Oscar-winning role in Silver Linings Playbook, Causeway takes her back to the type of indie drama that first put her on the map in Winter’s Bone.
Alongside Lawrence in Causeway are Brian Tyree Henry as Lynsey’s new friend James and Linda Emond as her mother. Henry has really broken out in recent years from a variety of roles, including in the hit TV series Atlanta and movies like Widows, Eternals and Bullet Train. Emond, meanwhile, is a veteran actress who fans are likely to recognize from Succession, The Gilded Age and The Patient.
Other Causeway cast members include Jayne Houdyshell (Only Murders in the Building) as Lynsey’s caretaker, Stephen McKinley Henderson (Fences) as her doctor, Frederick Weller (BlackKklansman) and Russell Harvard (Fargo)
Causeway reviews — what the critics are saying
Causeway first premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, where critics gave it a pretty warm reception. As of November 3, the movie has earned a "Certified Fresh" score of 86% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Many of the reviews praise the performances from Lawrence and her co-stars:
Marya E. Gates, RogerEbert.com: "[T]he drama works mostly due to the strong performances from Jennifer Lawrence, Linda Emond and Brian Tyree Henry."
Charles Bramesco, The Playlist: "For whatever inauthenticity might mar the conception of a work more genuine in its execution, we’re just privileged to spend time with two thespians at the top of their formidable game."
Causeway awards and nominations
Here are the major awards and nominations that Causeway has earned:
Los Angeles Film Critics Association
- Best Supporting Performance — Brian Tyree Henry (runner up)
Critics Choice Awards
- Best Supporting Actor — Brian Tyree Henry (nominee)
Film Independent Spirit Awards
- Best Supporting Performance — Brian Tyree Henry (nominee)
Gotham Awards
- Outstanding Supporting Performance — Brian Tyree Henry (nominee)
London Critics Circle Awards
- Supporting Actor of the Year — Brian Tyree Henry (nominee)
How long is Causeway?
Causeway has a total runtime of one hour and 32 minutes.
What is Causeway rated?
Causeway is rated R in the US and 15 in the UK for "some language, sexual references and drug use."
Who is Lila Neugebauer?
Lila Neugebauer is the director of Causeway, her first feature-length movie. The only other credits listed for Neugebauer on IMDb are TV directing gigs for Room 104, Maid and The Sex Lives of College Girls. However, Neugebauer is an acclaimed director in another medium.
Neugebauer is making the move to movies from the theater world. She has received acclaim for her direction of the off-Broadway plays The Wolves, Edward Albee’s The Zoo Story and Miles for Mary, then again when she made her Broadway debut with The Waverly Gallery, which received a Tony nomination for Best Play and a win for Best Actress (Elaine May).
At the moment, Neugebauer does not have any other TV of movie projects lined up.
