Tag: Jennifer Lawrence

Causeway is a breezy and powerful character study full of honesty.

Lynsey, a U.S. soldier, experiences a traumatic brain injury during her tour in Afghanistan which forces her to return home. She struggles to return to her daily life with her mother as she waits for her eventual redeployment.

Causeway is a film I’ve been waiting for awhile now and the wait was truly worth it, I’ve always been a huge fan of Jennifer Lawrence so it’s truly fantastic to see her back doing the type of roles she loves doing and does really well at. Her performance as Lynsey a U.S. soldier who experiences a traumatic brain injury and is forced to return home is truly an honest one. The film really creates a portrait of her character interacting with the rest of the cast who do a fantastic job here, the other standout being Brian Tyree Henry who plays James a car repairer who quickly befriends Lynsey and from there they start to have honest conversations with each other that lead to a lot of character study type of scenes. From the very first scene Jennifer Lawrence and Brian Tyree Henry are in together they instantly connect, mostly due to how creative and unbelievably good they are as performers combined with the writing which has a lot of meaning and depth to it. The main theme of the film is trying to rebuild your life after a traumatic event which is never an easy thing to do and the film shows plus explains that quite well, it mainly shows this from close up shows of Lawrence and Henry, a ton of quiet moments that let the viewer sink in the information and the honest nature of the characters with their emotions. Lastly there’s the direction from Lila Neugebauer who does a fantastic job here especially with it being her directional debut, she creates a breezy atmosphere that’s both relaxing and honest at the same time.

Causeway is available on Apple TV+

10/10 A

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Don’t Look Up is a satire that misses it’s mark.

Two low-level astronomers must go on a giant media tour to warn mankind of an approaching comet that will destroy planet Earth.

Let’s just get right into it, Don’t Look Up is a film that is just a complete and total mess. A few things I actually do like include, Jennifer Lawrence’s performance which it’s great to see her get back into acting it’s just such a shame the movie itself isn’t good. I liked the more quiet moments between the characters, during those moments it felt like the movie was trying to say something meaningful but then goes right back to being a unfunny satire. Lastly there’s the final 20 or so minutes that were genuinely interesting with actual decent writing and character moments….it’s too bad the rest of the movie couldn’t had been like that. As for the rest of the movie it’s a complete and total mess, I understand that the movie isn’t trying to be subtle at all, but this just goes beyond that. It treats the audience like they are dumb and explains way too much meanwhile trying to be a satire that isn’t funny at all. Most of the performances are terrible, while some are definitely better than others a lot of them feel either phoned in or just reach the line of coming off as very annoying. Lastly it feels way too long with such dreadfully slow pacing, there’s a ton of scenes that could have easily been cut and feel like nothing more than to act like it’s somehow having a hidden meaning. Overall Don’t Look Up is a complete and total mess, which like Being The Ricardos I have no idea why this is being celebrated when it comes to the award season.

Don’t Look Up is available on Netflix!

4/10 D+