On November 4 will be released on AppleTV the film Causeway (Crossing), unveiled earlier this fall at the Toronto International Film Festival. We then had writing all the good we had thought of this intimate drama recounting the return to civilian life, and perhaps to life at all, of a young American army veteran embodied by a soberly poignant Jennifer Lawrence and already considered for the Oscars. We also had the opportunity to speak with the director of the film, Lila Neugebauer.
Well-respected Broadway director Lila Neugebauer signs with Causeway his first film production.
“It was in 2019, when I had just put together a new production of the play The Waverly Galleryby Kenneth Lonergan [nommée aux Tony pour la meilleure reprise et gagnante du prix de la meilleure actrice pour Elaine May]. One of the producers of the play gave me the script for Causeway. I read it, and I was completely moved. Not being a veteran myself, I was a little disconcerted by this very strong impression of recognizing myself in this material,” recalls Lila Neugebauer.
The more she thought about it, the more it became clear to her that it was the inner life of the protagonist that she identified with.
“Her dissociation from herself, her sense of alienation from a place where she should feel at home, but where she feels more like an outsider…it resonated with me, really. There was such authenticity in the story…”
Shortly after, Lila Neugebauer learned that Jennifer Lawrence had also read the script and had a reaction similar to hers.
“We had supper together and we understood that our vision was the same and that our common feelings in relation to the scenario were deeply anchored”, says the director.
A touching friendship
The Oscar-winning star of Silver Linings Playbook (The bright side) plays Lynsey, who, after suffering a major traumatic brain injury in Afghanistan, has just been repatriated. Despite her condition, all she thinks about is getting medical clearance to go back there. At one point, she confides about her hometown in general, and her family home in particular: “I would a hundred times rather go back there than stay here. That’s how much I don’t want to be here. »
By chance, she meets a mechanic, James (Brian Tyree Henry, seen as a gay superhero in Eternals), who also lives with the repercussions of both physical and psychological injuries. However, rather than an agreed love story, Causeway embroiders from this meeting a very beautiful and very moving story of friendship. Significant advantage: Lawrence and Henry share a fabulous bond.
“I’ve known Brian since I was 19. He is an old friend. He is an actor, and a person, of rare depth, charisma and humanity. I suspected that the current would pass between him and Jen. I was right: from day one, their chemistry, not just as actors, but as human beings, was so rich, so joyful… I’m sure the film is what it is. partly thanks to this spontaneous chemistry,” says Lila Neugebauer.
Sketched out with delicacy, in small, finely observed touches, this friendship between Lynsey and James is based on a quickly established mutual understanding. This rarely manifests itself by using words, but more willingly in the detour of speaking silences and unspoken words that say it all.
“I love language, its infinite elasticity. But I’m also fascinated by those moments when we reach the limits of language, when it becomes inadequate. And what we have here, basically, are two characters struggling to better understand who they are, on the inside. Sometimes words fail them. I really liked this aspect of the story, and I wanted to translate it with care and respect”, explains Lila Neugebauer about this choice of a rare dialogue and, when used, economical.
She who no longer has to prove that she has an extraordinary sense of repartee, Jennifer Lawrence inhabits each of these silences with a quiet strength that does not fail. Never since Winter’s Bonewhich revealed her in 2010 and earned her her first Oscar nomination, the actress had never captivated so much by doing so little.
The acting of the star is in this case not the only reason for which one thinks of the formidable film of Debra Granik. Fact, Causeway could almost be the spiritual sequel. In Winter’s Bone, indeed, we followed a teenager from the Ozarks, Ree (Lawrence), who was looking for her missing father against a backdrop of endemic poverty and criminality. All along, Ree had only one dream: to leave her remote corner and enlist in the army. At the beginning of CausewayLynsey has just been discharged…
“Jen has been my creative partner every step of the way,” notes Lila Neugebauer. From start to finish, we were on the same wavelength. She’s an advocate and champion filmmaker, Jen. I couldn’t ask for more. »
Meticulous composition
The film, which exudes this authenticity that had marked the director so much on reading the script, flows in an almost naturalistic flow. With hindsight, however, images come back to memory, and we understand how each shot was carefully composed.
One thinks, for example, of the appearances of Lynsey’s mother, who is always kept in the background, at a distance, or captured in an overall shot. Conversely, James is almost immediately crunched in close-up near Lynsey. These two contrasting ways of presenting the characters say all there is to say about their respective relationship with the protagonist.
“I had the privilege of being able to count on the collaboration of a remarkable director of photography, Diego Garcia [Cemetery of Splendour, d’Apichatpong Weerasethakul]. He and I share an obsessive love for meticulous shot composition. We are both fascinated by the communicative dimension of a composition, by what it can provoke on the emotional level, on the cerebral level, on the visceral level, on the level of the unconscious as well…”
The ideal approach, in short, to visit the wounded, but not broken, psyche of Lindsay.
The film Causeway will appear on Apple TV+ on November 4.