'Causeway's' Lila Neugebauer on directing Jennifer Lawrence and the joy of Elaine May
The new film "Causeway," in theaters and streaming on Apple TV+, centers on two remarkably low-key but nevertheless riveting performances by Jennifer Lawrence and Brian Tyree Henry. The film is the first produced by Lawrence and is also the debut feature for director Lila Neugebauer.
Neugebauer is among the most acclaimed directors on the New York theater scene, having directed the world premieres of Sarah DeLappe's "The Wolves," Branden Jacob-Jenkins' "Everybody" and Annie Baker's "The Antipodes." She made her Broadway debut with the 2018 production of Kenneth Lonergan's "The Waverly Gallery" that was nominated for two Tonys, winning the award for lead actress in a play for Elaine May.
"Causeway," from a screenplay credited to novelists Elizabeth Sanders ("The Last Light"), Ottessa Moshfegh ("My Year of Rest and Relaxation") and Luke Goebel ("Fourteen Stories, None of Them Are Yours"), opens with Lynsey (Lawrence), having returned to the U.S. from a tour of duty in Afghanistan with a traumatic brain injury, painstakingly relearning how to walk, hold objects, care for herself and simply remember things.
Back at her mother's house in New Orleans, she gets a job cleaning pools and strikes up a halting, tentative friendship with James (Henry), a mechanic
