Director Ari Aster’s most personal film yet, Beau is Afraid, has a lot to say in a unique way that hit me like a gut punch in the best way possible.
This morning I awoke from a particularly upsetting nightmare. Maybe it was the lack of sleep from earlier in the week catching up to me, or perhaps my natural anxiety bleeding into my rest time; either way, I was happy to get up early and get my day started by finishing this review which I couldn’t quite wrap up last night after my work shift.
Beau is Afraid
Directed By: Ari Aster
Written By: Ari Aster
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Nathan Lane, Amy Ryan, Stephen McKinley Henderson
Release Date: Blu-ray, DVD, and digital on July 11, 2023 but available on digital platforms now.
At one point in my life, I was diagnosed schizo-affective, a sort of cross between schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Over the past nine years, I’ve learned—along with ongoing treatment from an excellent medical team and a continuing education in medications and therapy—that my condition is less of a psychosis (and perhaps even a misdiagnosis). Instead, it leans more into the realm of conditional anxiety, paranoia, and post-traumatic stress specifically connected to major life events including shifts in substance use, homelessness, and parental death.
I bring this all up for a reason: when one’s deepest fears, whether rational or not, begin to manifest themselves into reality, the world becomes a dark, scary, and horrifying place to live in. There’s also something to be said about that world and life in general as it is quite dark and scary! When one begins to consider the natural human experiences and thoughts on existence, spiritualism and religion, love and companionship…Well, the whole thing can be overwhelming.
Hence are the themes central to Beau is Afraid, director Ari Aster’s third and most personal film; a film that has its protagonist face all the anxieties and fears that plague his world—physically, mentally, emotionally, and existentially. This is not a horror film like what we’ve come to expect from Aster. There are things going on here that are indeed horrifying, not only for Beau, but for all of the human race. Especially when considering the monsters we keep in the metaphorical upstairs attic.
This movie is bizarre and absurd but isn’t extremely hard to follow when it comes to the main plot which is a credit to Aster’s direction and writing. In essence, the film starts with Beau (Joaquin Phoenix) at the beginning of a therapy session. His therapist (played by an always welcome Stephen McKinley Henderson) asks him about his upcoming trip home to visit his mother. Immediately we see there’s some deep seeded issues surfacing as symptoms of a very high anxiety disorder.
We follow Beau to his slum apartment and witness the anxieties of his world begin to play out. From a murderous naked knife-bearing man outside his apartment building; to threatening poisonous spiders that have taken over the inside of his building; as well as missing keys and not enough pocket change for a bottled water…The guy’s having a tough go. He receives the news his mother has died (from a chandelier falling and decapitating her) and begins to unravel.
His travel plans get delayed when he’s later hit by a moving vehicle. When he comes to, he finds himself under the domestic care of the couple who hit him (played by a delightful pairing of Nathan Lane and Amy Ryan). With Beau’s injuries, his anxiety begins to compound when unsuspected chaos starts to unfold within the household and further delays his journey home to his mother’s funeral. Along that journey, Beau comes across a traveling theatre troupe, some familiar faces from his past, and continuously absurd circumstances that culminate in an existential reckoning of sorts.
That’s about as clear of a synopsis as one can get from Beau Is Afraid. The tone of the film though, along with the plot, plays out in a Marx Brothers-like absurdism that filters the world Beau lives in. Aster’s direction takes on a Charlie Kauffman-esque tonality that really colors the whole film in a comedic mood that works in favor of it. This is a bonkers film with bonkers situations happening, and one’s mileage of how much it all works—or doesn’t—is dependent upon one’s liking of the comedy.
If you find this funny, the film’s mileage will go much further than if you don’t. I found the film laugh-out-loud funny at several moments and so it all kind of works for me in practice. One can’t be blamed though if Aster’s work drives them away from the movie theater in a hurry. And at three hours in length, Beau Is Afraid will test the patience of the most modern of cinema goers.
Joaquin Phoenix continues to prove that he’s perhaps the best living actor of his generation. His performance is layered, funny, and ultimately epic in scope with his signature weirdo charisma on full display. I can’t think of another actor in Hollywood who could have carried this film the way Phoenix is required to do (again, especially for three hours). The rest of the cast is a theatre queen’s smorgasbord of stage and character actors doing some fantastic work from bravura power plays to almost high camp. Because of the talent on screen, it all works when, maybe, it really shouldn’t. Special kudos to Parker Posey and Patti LuPone (yes, THE Patti LuPone) who in the homestretch of the film really knock it out of the park.
Visually, the film is assured and has a particularly wonderfully animated segment that reminded me of one of my favorite animated movies of all time: Don Hertzfeldt’s 2012 masterpiece, It’s Such a Beautiful Day. There’s a synergy between the opening and closing shots of Beau that deal with the emergence of a human into this world and their departure from whence they came that I found undeniable.
The music might be the best part of the movie, particularly a Mariah Carey needle drop culminates in perhaps the funniest thing I’ve seen on screen in years. In the third hour of the film, I was given gift after gift of some of my favorite things in the world. Happy Pride, everyone!
Admittedly there are problems. Some of the acts tend to last too long and overstay their presence long after they’ve established their point. If movie law and lapses in structural binding bug you, you’ll find many things to gripe about (although nothing to the extent of the tricks played out in a film like Michael Haneke’s 2007 Funny Games, a film that still makes me angry when I reflect on it). And despite the animation previously mentioned, the use of CGI in the final half hour seems off which could be for several reasons, including budget restraints or even inexperience with the medium. And again, after three hours… Well, things can get a little long in the tooth.
I think it’s safe to say Ari Aster has become one of the foremost eminent American filmmakers of the past decade with two fantastic genre movies under his belt. His debut feature Hereditary (2018) was a breakthrough flick that, along with Jordan Peele’s Get Out (2017), Robert Eggers’ The Witch (2015), and Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook (2014), established the “elevated horror” genre (despite current discourse over that moniker, this is a compliment in my opinion). With his sophomore effort, 2019’s Midsommar, Aster solidified his reputation as not only a horror director of note, but also as an auteur of the craft. One with a penchant for big swings in his films that seem to polarize both critics and modern audiences alike when considering their reception.
We now have Beau Is Afraid which may ultimately prove to be the most polarizing film in his catalog and of the post-pandemic era thus far. This is an audacious effort, a bit of a departure when compared to his previous two, and an expensive risk (the $35 million budget is more than double the cost of Hereditary or Midsommar) which was made possible by the leverage he gained with the successful financial intake of those two films. Aster could have made any movie he wanted, and this one is divisive and maybe even more flawed upon deeper reflection than either of his first two films (and considerably funnier), but Beau Is Afraid has the ambition and artistic risks of a director who continues to surprise and enthrall in an industry that despairingly and continuously does not. I’ll take more; please and thank you.
