We haven’t seen much of her lately,except for her part last year in Adam McKay’s political satireDon’t Look Up,but she has a strong line-up of forthcoming roles,among them the lead in Luca Guadagnino’s screen version ofBurial Rites,Australian writer Hannah Kent’s remarkable 19th century novel about the last woman to face execution in Iceland.
Causeway is a small-scale venture – a first feature from New York theatre director Lila Neugebauer that returns Lawrence to her beginnings. It is just as spare and uncompromising asWinter’s Bone.
She plays Lynsey,an American soldier recovering from injuries suffered in a car explosion in Afghanistan,and we’re well into the film’s opening sequence before she utters a word.
By then,she’s about to make a trip home to see her mother in New Orleans,although it’s easy to see she doesn’t want to go. She would much rather return to her unit,although she has nightmares,panic attacks and a psychiatrist who is refusing to declare her fit for duty.
Her mother Gloria (Linda Emond) does her best to be welcoming,but it’s pretty clear her maternal instincts have long been upstaged by her love of a good time. When Lynsey says no to a companionable late-night drinking session,Gloria loses what little interest she had in trying to learn more about what her daughter has endured.