Jennifer Lawrence made a splash last year when she smoked pot in the Oscar-nominated Don't Look Up. She repeats that feat in her latest movie, Lila Neugebauer's Causeway, currently streaming on Apple TV+.
Lawrence plays Lynsey, a Army Corps of Engineers specialist whose vehicle was blown up in Afghanistan. She survived the blast, but suffers from traumatic brain injury. Lynsey returns home to New Orleans where she plans to rehab and then redeploy.
Life in Cresecent City adds to Lynsey's trauma. Her drug-addicted brother is in jail and mother Gloria (Linda Emond) offers little help. In between physical therapy and her new job cleaning pools, Lynsey's befriended by auto mechanic James (Brian Tyree Henry) who has his own issues due to a car accident.
These two damaged souls bond over beer, a blunt and a sno-cone, in that order.
On a number of prescriptions drugs, Lynsey's reluctant to drink when she goes to a bar with James. But she does and later in the night admits to James as he smokes a blunt, "I've never actually tried weed." They have a deep heart-to-heart with both confessing what happened to them. "I never thought I would come back here," she says. "Then, I got blown up."
James extends his arm and offer her the blunt. She takes it and inhales once.
"Hey, you good?" James asks.
Lynsey explains she can't stand being back in her family's house. "So many nights sitting at that kitchen table and my brother would be nodding off," she reveals.
Lynsey never smoked because "my brother does enough drugs for the both of us. Crack, meth, laundry detergent. Some alchemy he learned online. Didn't work. Burned his lung.
"I miss him. He and I were both trapped in that house. But I'm the only one who made it out."
"You got blown up?" James says.
"IED." she replies.
Causeway is pretty much a two-person movie with Lawrence in practically every scene. She's terrific as always. And Henry is equal to the task of keeping pace with the two-time Oscar winner.
