Metacritic reviews

Causeway is an excellent, moving, determinedly low-key slice of US indie cinema.

It's nice to see actors like these do such subtle, sympathetic work for a gifted young director — and to find an outlet for storytelling that doesn't demand neat redemption, but still allows for grace.

The double character piece excels most when Neugebauer does her thing and facilitates her actors. Together, they build a pair of utterly real people, nonetheless confined to a dramatic universe more prone to contrivance. But the pleasures of the former generally outweigh the irksomeness of the latter, with Lawrence and costar Brian Tyree Henry joined in as a super-generator of onscreen magnetism.

Like the relationship between Lynsey and James, Causeway is a film that slowly grows on you, a film that puts on a tough front—with its devastated characters and desire for escape—yet at its center is a tremendous about of heart, love, with its found families and shared pain.

It’s a small-scale film that many might call unambitious, favoring delicate observation over big emotional payoff.

Lawrence and Henry have a warm, natural chemistry, and that rapport really seems to guide where the movie ends up, instead of the other way around.

This could all feel schematic in lesser hands, but Neugebauer gives Lawrence and Henry the space they need to make the film’s characters feel like real people. As a result, the inevitable glimmer of hope they share at the end is as honest as the hurt that guided them to it.

Causeway is a drama of redemption that’s both touching and a little arduous. Just because your characters are suffering doesn’t mean they have to mostly stop talking.

It’s lucky that Neugebauer has such strong talent to elevate what she’s working with, as it helps rescue Causeway from a forgettable collection of indie-drama cliches into something more respectable.

Everything about this film means well and it is acted with professionalism and commitment. But there is something too easy about it.