Try to get a reservation at Lucien, the French restaurant on the Lower East Side, and the person on the other end of the phone will likely hang up. Yet, since the late Lucien Bahaj opened the space, in 1998, people—the art-world crowd, movie stars, Julia Fox—have come to love the restaurant’s edge, in large part thanks to the charisma of Lucien’s son Zachary, who now runs the bistro.
When theater directors move to the big screen, their knack for pacing and dialogue tends to be a gift to the production. Lila Neugebauer—the standout New York stage director behind the Tony-nominated 2018 Broadway revival of Kenneth Lonergan’s The Waverly Gallery—is no exception. In her directorial debut for film, A24’s Causeway, starring Jennifer Lawrence and Brian Tyree Henry, she makes the switch without losing the plot.
