Director: Ari Aster
Writer: Ari Aster
Stars: Joaquin Phoenix, Patti LuPone, Zoe Lister-Jones
Synopsis: Following the sudden death of his mother, a mild-mannered but anxiety-ridden man confronts his darkest fears as he embarks on an epic, Kafkaesque odyssey back home.
Standing tall at an almost three-hour runtime with hazy pacing, Beau is Afraid is an anxiety-inducing cinematic experience like no other. By blending jet-black humor with existentialist horrors, Aster and Phoenix jointly craft an absurdist, no-holds-barred picture that showcases the best of their respective abilities and newly-found artistic capacities. Dive into an infinity pool of Freudian nightmares if you dare, and follow the steps of a pitiful man afraid of everything.
Ari Aster is a master manipulator, and I say that in the most positive way imaginable. Both his features and shorts have a prescient yielding that calms the viewer for a second, later to dwell in the tension-filled horrors of human bonds (primarily family), the presence of time, and everything in between. Although he is a visionary filmmaker in some regards, his films are always steeped in the past – referencing other acclaimed works (The Exorcist, The Wicker Man, Don’t Look Now) but adding his own twist to them, often morbidly hilarious and sadistic ones that make or break some of the viewer’s cinematic experiences. And the weird thing is that he’s getting funnier each time around, cementing jet-black nightmare-inducing comedy as his storytelling comfort zone. After cursing us with an unnerving and tension-filled family drama in Hereditary and later following it up with a floral folk-horror-inspired fairy tale with Midsommar, Aster thought it was time to create his passion project, and A24 ultimately backed him up, sending almost fifty million dollars to pursue his wicked dream film.
The film he’s been aching to set free into the world is titled Beau is Afraid – the title is taken from his 2011 short film, Beau – and it is creatively disturbing as sin, running at a lusciously malevolent three hours. In this film, Aster presents a comedic Charlie Kaufman-inspired Kafta-esque story drenched in dread and disappointment, where Freud’s Oedipus Complex is ever-present. Death and mothers are just the tip of the surrealistic iceberg that Beau is Afraid is mounted on, as there’s a lot to unpack within each minute shown. Arriving with the succinct tagline “from his darkest fears comes the greatest adventure” as a means to try and sell this movie to the public, the film begins with the bright light of birth, yet with a darkened underpinning. You hear a mother screaming at the top of her lungs for her baby to enter the world.
Already, you begin to get a sense that Aster is about to deliver something far more disturbing than one might have even anticipated if you’ve seen the trailers and posters. The film jumps forward almost five decades later, where we are given a proper introduction to our ever-suffering and lonely protagonist, Beau Wasserman (Joaquin Phoenix), having a session with his therapist where he’s discussing a trip to see his domineering mother, Mona (Patti LuPone in the present; Zoe Lister-Jones in the past). It feels that he is still guilt-ridden for all that has happened throughout his life, including being born in the first place. He hasn’t seen his mother in months. This trip has him filled with remorse – afraid of what’s to come upon arrival, or even worse, how to get there with a riotous city on the brink of collapse where AR-15s are being sold on the streets, and there’s a naked serial killer on the loose named Birthday Stab Man.
The city and the situations Beau faces reflect what he would describe as his own personal hell. And inside his apartment complex, Beau isn’t safe either; there’s a brown spider on the loose, and he has a violent neighbor that complains about his non-existent music playing. Even without the film showing too much of its deranged self, we begin to see the brilliance of Phoenix’s acting chops, brilliantly playing a character that becomes more pathetic as the film continues. Beau is a man subdued by his own fears and anxieties, preferring to dwell in his tortured mind rather than face the harsh reality of life, and Phoenix plays him perfectly. Aster puts him through various situations that showcase that he isn’t just a pathetic man on the inside and outside. While there is an excellent selection of great supporting performances (LuPone, Parker Posey, Richard Kind, Kylie Rogers), all of which easily steal scenes from the leading man, this is Phoenix’s show.
On the day of his trip, Beau’s keys mysteriously go missing (as if someone stole them), which causes him to miss the flight back home and confront his guilt-tripping mother via a phone call where she says, “It’s fine” he can’t make it. But all know that everything is not indeed “fine,” as she states. That precise phrase showcases how Mona has weaponized her son’s guilt. The guilt contained within human bonds (primarily blood-related) has been a pet topic by Aster in his past works. But in Beau is Afraid, it takes a darker and more ambitious turn for the best. The Oedipal complexities of Beau’s relationship with his mother are so richly unhinged that they cause the viewer to remain anxious, like the titular character. However, it might reach a certain point where some audiences grow frustrated with the film. And I don’t blame them; it is a lot to take in – three hours worth of disorienting and almost absurdist, due to the lengths of the surprises arising in the latter half, filmmaking from one of the best horror directors working today.
Beau’s worries increase as it has been revealed by a mail carrier (Bill Hader) that his mother has passed away in a freak accident in which a chandelier smashed into her head. Riddled with remorse and entirely heartbroken, Beau steps outside to leave for Mona’s funeral. And instantaneously, he crosses paths with a truck driven by two overprotective parents, Roger (Nathan Lane) and Grace (Amy Ryan), who put him in a Misery-like situation. After such events, which I won’t spoil because the journey is so chaotic that you should experience them in its totality in a packed theater, Beau is Afraid transcends into a weird and grotesque panoply of conjoined psychological horror-comedy set pieces that fit together in unimaginable ways – creating a mad fun-house of anxieties, fears, and dismay, with delightful mirrorings of an inescapable existential hell. From Pawel Pogorzelski’s bewitching cinematography to Bobby Krlic’s cacophonous compositions (and the late uproarious addition of an ‘Always Be My Baby’ by Mariah Carey needle drop), every cinematic aspect helps the film to uplift its lucid nightmare aesthetics.
Beau is Afraid often feels like Aster’s version of Synecdoche, New York – a no-holds-barred project that, in a master’s hands, manages to tether between the realms of nightmarish surrealism and a vivid grounded nature at a constant rate to make its melancholy hit harder and its mythicality to push forward its shock factor. You are left in awe by the beauty of such original creations. Every succeeding chapter feels like a more significant swing than the one that precedes it, all of which deliver one demented uproarious gag to the next. Aster has many tricks up his sleeves that showcase the best of his abilities and new specialties withheld from us over the years. The wonderful practical effects, stop-motion animation from The Wolf House directors Joaquín Cociña and Cristóbal León (which brings a matryoshka doll-like storytelling structure), and the intertwining between past and present all add to the bizarre experience that is Beau is Afraid. It might be a bit too much in the end.
Still, that same excess smeared in the film helps to create a numbing coating that hypnotizes the viewer and alleviates the pain just before, moments later, Ari Aster puts you back into the meat grinder of antagonistic horrors. At the end of the day, Beau is Afraid is an imaginative venture into the depths of Aster’s mind – a place where his fears, worries, anxieties, and pleasures come out to play.
