Best Supporting Actor 2022: Brian Tyree Henry in Causeway

Brian Tyree Henry received his first Oscar nomination for portraying James Aucoin in Causeway.

Causeway tells the story of a woman Lynsey (Jennifer Lawrence) recovering from a traumatic brain injury in her hometown of New Orleans. 

The central element of the film is Lynsey's friendship with Brian Tyree Henry's James, an auto mechanic, who she naturally meets when getting a truck fixed. I've previously covered Henry for his brief though memorable turn in If Beale Street Could Talk, and he seems like the kind of actor I'll be reviewing more than a few times. One time came a little earlier than expected with his surprise nomination here. Causeway falls into a certain group of Independent films with someone in somewhat dire circumstances evaluating their life, often through their relationship with someone else. How well this works typically is dependent upon how much you believe in the relationship and how much you believe in the performance. Henry is an actor who brings a decidedly relaxed presence that grants a certainly given reality to his work and can make an impact through that reality even with something as simple as his bit part as an orderly in Joker. His role as James here is more than a bit more substantial, however, what success there is falls into the same notion of Henry's naturalistic manner as a performer. His first scene with Lynsey is somewhat perfunctory as he runs down the options for the truck. Even in such a scene Henry's delivery just has an immediate sense of James as a mechanic, years of doing the job just in the rundown itself, and it is great simple delivery. The situation changes quickly as James gives Lynsey a ride home and they have a connection through James's sister. Henry's performance accentuates history without even putting too much on it. As talking about their mutual experience from being in New Orleans, Henry speaks so much of it with a certain joy he has when talking about, while also speaking about the character's history as his eyes instantly denote someone closing off emotionally almost immediately when Lynsey starts asking more about his sister. What the scene also does is create a convincing chemistry with Lawrence in the scene, it isn't too much or too little, as Henry builds off of it with her in the shared history of their town and sort of the joy of the mutual memories growing up. 

The main progression of the film ends up being the connection between these two characters, which needs to be believed for any of this to work at all. Although I don't love Causeway by any measure, the majority of what works is when it is just Henry and Lawrence together. The two work together, particularly Henry's work which is an exercise consistently in saying a lot even when he's not saying a lot. A lot of moments aren't about big revelations, sometimes they're just about sharing a drink or a snow cone. Henry's performance in these moments though is what gives them substance because there is a real depth through any word, even not particularly meaningful words. His deliveries, and his reactions, just feel bluntly real in a way that grants a needed reality to the scenes. Henry does this by really never coming into any of these scenes with a singular path, but rather finding a particularly naturalistic flow between ideas as people do. The reserved nuance of his work is incredibly remarkable because Henry finds his way through an average conversation is always a new way, yet never does it feel gimmicky. In every case, this just feels like we're talking to James and in turn walking into this conversation between Lynsey and James. That is particularly essential because it is the potential cliché of the two disparate people coming together, the African American mechanic who is missing a leg, and the white lesbian soldier with a brain injury. It could very easily feel that way, but it doesn't because you do believe both people in their scenes together. Every interaction between the two just feels honest within the performances, and the scenes, including the most casual of scenes, have a fundamental lived-in quality that gets the relationship over the potential hump of the artificial design within the screenplay. 

Speaking of artificial design, where the inherent drama of the pieces enters is the two sharing their mutual troubled histories as one, as both are broken in some way and we share that. Again something that can easily twist towards melodramatic if off, even as written here potentially, but the performances earn in. In part, because the two feel authentic together when they're discussing a matter of great importance but also by how Henry performs the most intense emotions. There are really three major scenes in this regard. The first is when James describes the accident where he lost his leg, which also led to the death of his sister and nephew. Henry's performance throughout the scene is brilliant. His delivery is weighed with regret and the history of the invention. Every word he says is an omission of something, while still having so much hesitation in even what he is admitting. His eyes nearly closing but also pressing, as though he is directly thinking of the memory at the moment, going through the pain again. Henry though doesn't go big, he goes small and is so poignant in the small. Henry presents the moment as not someone who has made peace with the event but has spent some time with it. He knows how to avoid feeling some of the emotions, and Henry presents that process in such a powerful fashion yet also with natural detail. The second scene that tackles this is when he and Lynsey are lounging around a pool she is treating, where she gets him to join her in the pool, where he reveals his injury. Take Henry's physical work around the scene, he doesn't give too much attention to it, however, in such subtle discomfort shows the man in no way is confident in this state or still with his permanent injury. This leads to them first making out, before he rejects that which she follows with her feeling sorry for him. Henry is great in this scene in just exuding such pained frustration and sorrow in every word, while still showing the attempt to hold it all together. Even when he lets out a little more about his crash, that he was driving, he had drank, and allowed his nephew to sit in a vulnerable spot, Henry's delivery is masterful by being so human in releasing the emotion in equal measure with holding it in as a defense mechanism. Evoking a potent shame while showing a man still wanting to hold himself together. Henry creates such a moving and complex portrayal of guilt, that he never simplifies it into easy sentiment, rather it is a complicated and nuanced sorrow weathered but not lost by time. We see within this eventually what really connects the two isn't romance, despite the aforementioned moment, but companionship. This is illustrated I think by a scene that one might not think about too much but is one of the best in Henry's performance, as he asks Lynsey to move with him, not as a lover or wife, but just as a friend. Henry speaks the words in a straightforward way however just within every word there is real hope and his eyes the sense of the sad loneliness that defines the man deep down. Again Henry brilliantly plays the layer of the man revealing himself but still holding it all in. Although I don't even love this film, or even like it entirely, what unquestionably works for me is Henry's dynamic and always convincing portrait of grief and the need for companionship.