A young star who won an Oscar and is now a mother and returned to the movies

When to Jennifer Lawrence she was offered a script about a US Army engineer who returns wounded from Afghanistan, was on sabbatical from acting, and had yet to become a mother.

The Oscar-winning star for The good side of things (Silver Linings Playbookas she was called in English), 32, whose fame skyrocketed from the blockbuster saga of The Hunger Gameshad been an almost ubiquitous presence with a prolific string of films, before announcing a hiatus because “everyone had had enough of me.”

But when he read the script for Causewaythen titled Red, White, and Water (Rojo, blanco y agua, en español), something changed.

“It was really something that came from my gut, like an emergency,” Lawrence told AFP at the Toronto film festival.

“I was very clear that I didn’t want to work, and then somehow (that script) landed on my desk, and I had this sense of urgency, like ‘let’s do it, let’s do this,'” he said.

This character-driven independent film, which also became the first project for Lawrence’s fledgling production company, follows military engineer Lynsey’s return to her mother’s home in New Orleans.

A debilitating brain injury after an improvised bomb explosion in Afghanistan is not the only trauma the protagonist must overcome, as problems from her childhood and family life come to the fore.

Lawrence chose the film in part to show “what these heroes go through to keep us safe.”

“It was wonderful to be able to talk to the incredible men and women who have served (in the military), to try to get more information and background,” he said on the red carpet of the film’s world premiere on Saturday.

But Lawrence also drew in part from her own childhood for her performance in “Causeway,” in which Lynsey has a troubled relationship with her unreliable mother.

“I had complications in my childhood like everyone else, so it was more like solving that,” he said of the film, whose shooting began in 2019 but had to be interrupted until 2021 due to the pandemic.

During that hiatus, Lawrence also filmed and promoted the apocalyptic comedy Don’t Look Up, which she starred in alongside Leonardo Di Caprio and became one of Netflix’s biggest hits of 2021.

And since then she launched her motherhood, giving birth to her son Cy earlier this year. “Oh God, everything changes after you become a mom!” she told the AFP agency. “How am I making life difficult for him? I don’t know yet,” she joked.

In the film, Lynsey strikes up an unlikely friendship with James, played by Brian Tyree Henry, an auto mechanic who fixes her truck when it breaks down.

Although they both grew up in New Orleans, their backgrounds are very different. But he also has a family trauma buried deep in his past, which brings the two together, in a bond that soon becomes the emotional anchor of the film.

“This film (referring to Causeway) is an excavation of how we started to process, how we cope, how we really changed, how we started connecting again,” said director Lila Neugebauer, making her feature film debut after a successful run. down Broadway.

“Both Jen and Brian connect deeply with their characters in this film, as actors and as human beings,” he added.

Lawrence said she identified with this woman “who has been through so much and is suffering from this invisible injury and is trying to rebuild her home and where she belongs.” “There was something that connected me deeply,” she said.

Causeway It will be released on November 4 in some theaters and on the Apple TV + streaming platform. So far there is no information about his arrival in Uruguay.