Beau is Afraid
Joaquin Phoenix as Beau Wasserman in Beau is Afraid
Let’s get this out of the way first: you will (probably) not see a weirder film this year than Beau is Afraid. Like The Truman Show infused with an Alan Resnick x Eric Andre (maybe just ‘Adult Swim’ would suffice) lovechild’s sense of nasty, absurd humour, Ari Aster again proves that he’s one of the best in the biz at nightmare cinema.
Beau (Joaquin Phoenix) is a highly paranoid, neurotic man who is afraid of the world and the people who inhabit it. He also has extremely massive balls, as you’ll come to find out. The one presence that has been a constant in his life is his overbearing mother Mona (Patti LuPone, and Zoe Lister Jones as ‘Young Mona’). On the anniversary of his dad’s death, Beau makes an epic odyssey home to his mother, with the sickliest of consequences.
Aster has long been, alongside Peele and Eggers, an influential presence in the modern psychological horror scene. His two features Hereditary and Midsommar were major successes, and whilst they possess a firm grasp of the genre in both feel and form, Beau is Afraid is more along the lines of a manic acid-trip fantasy comedy. This film is very, very funny. The opening 30 minutes are littered with visual gags (“Pussy Smoke Cigarette”, “Birthday Boy Stab Man”) and stupidly stupid moments that one can’t help but cackle at. Don’t worry though, the darker turn the film takes in the final act has one scene, utilising top of the line movie monster CGI, that is guaranteed to make you buckle in your seat. If you know, you know.
Calling it a horror, though, is also fitting. From the opening sequence to the closing credits, Beau is inhabiting into a tortuous existence in a bizarre world that all seems interconnected in some way. As we stroll alongside him, we too become uneasy at every little detail. This is a stunningly complex and exhausting three hours into the psyche of a man who desperately, above all else, needs to cum.
The cast give it their all, and Phoenix is outstanding to watch, even if what you’re watching isn’t particularly pleasant. LuPone is also remarkably terrifying as Beau’s sadistic, yet deeply affectionate mother. She almost represents a horseshoe theory take on extreme love. For all of the times Beau is Afraid keeps us on tenterhooks, it’s impossible to deny just how eccentric and wild it is. If it wasn’t so ontologically disturbing, I would call it entertaining.
This is sure to be divisive, and mileage on the overall runtime seems to be on the negative side of things. However, Beau is Afraid is a massive sucker punch even from a director so notorious for shocking his audience, it’s kind of impossible for me not to root for this. Despite all the miserabilism, Aster still makes a well-though point and purpose to all the suffering. People that hate this are more than entitled to, but as Aster rightly told us in our pre-film introduction: “Just go with it”.
