Beau is Afraid (Movie Review)

Beau is Afraid is an epic, horror auteur Ari Aster’s ridiculous swing for the fences, a quintessential blank check film. It probably goes without saying that if you weren’t a fan of Aster’s previous films, this isn’t the one to win you over. Even if you are a fan of his work, Beau is Afraid may be a difficult film for you. I am writing this review in the hopes that you will see it anyway.
If you have heard anything about Beau, it’s probably that the film is weird and too long, but I think those reports are borne out of a mismatch between the audience’s expectations and what this film delivers. This is not the rip-roaring adventure promised in the trailers by the upbeat music of Supertramp. This is not a horror film in the vein of Hereditary or Midsommar, except for a few scenes of intense, soul-draining emotion. Beau is a magical realist nightmare, a comedy so bleak that the theater often goes silent…while I keep giggling in the dark.
The lines are blurred in this film, so it’s unclear what is or is not real. I don’t think I can spoil it for you. Is the title character’s father actually a penis monster? Or did Beau witness his father explode? Or did his father disappear? Or did he die in the act of coitus? Does anyone who’s seen this film actually know the truth?
And yet, I don’t think Beau is a mess. It may indeed be Aster’s masterpiece. The film’s most salient flaw is fully intentional. If you go into the film blind, you are thrown into the deep end of the nightmare and there’s no ladder to haul yourself back out. The best you can do is tread water and try not to get pulled under. For those of you who like to brave terrible strangeness alone, here’s your high jump. The rest of you should stand at the poolside a little longer and bear with me.
[major spoilers follow]
So what is Beau is Afraid about? On the surface, it’s simple. Beau (Joaquin Phoenix) is a fragile, anxious, borderline-agoraphobic who wants to go see his mother, Mona (Patti Lupone), but a series of wild, horrifying, farcical circumstances interrupt. Then he dies. Maybe.
The more complicated answer is that Beau is an episodic adventure, taking the titular character from his apartment in the wretched city to a quasi-kidnapping situation; to a whimsical playhouse set up in the forest; to his mother’s funeral; on to his trial and execution. Each new locale and cast of characters seems contorted to exacerbate (or reflect?) Beau’s specific anxieties.
The film opens in the apotheosis of city hellscapes, where every person seems to be a different flavor of degenerate weirdo and children buy guns in the street. To give you an idea of how decrepit the city is, I can say that scenes of the city from the the trailer led me to believe the film took place after the apocalypse. Beau’s tenement is fraught with danger: a sign warns residents that there is a spider loose in the building and every homeless person seems hellbent on infiltrating Beau’s apartment specifically. Beau overhears the TV news warning that there is a naked man stalking the streets stabbing people. Beau later has to flee that very man, is cornered by a policeman who confuses him for the murder, and then Beau is hit by a car mere moments before the cop has a chance to shoot him.
Yes, the events are as ridiculous as they sound, but Joaquin Phoenix does not play the role as a perennially down-on-his-luck comedic protagonist. Instead, he plays the part as a genuinely frightened, perpetually wounded man. Like Odysseus, Beau is blown from place to place, situation to situation. Unlike the Greek hero, Beau never takes command of his situation. He constantly defers to others and deflects responsibility, and you may find your pity for him dries up by the film’s end.
Essentially, Beau is what makes Beau is Afraid a difficult film. For anxious viewers, his paranoia - which is constantly validated by the film - may make the darkly comedic elements hard to enjoy. After all, how can you laugh when you see your own intrusive thoughts come to life on screen? Even those who can appreciate the comedy - seriously, suicide by paint consumption? decapitation by ceiling fan? - may have trouble rooting for a protagonist who takes no initiative; every book on writing novels or screenplays will tell you that your protagonists need to lead the plot, not the other way around.
The film seems to bait viewers with the promise of purpose to Beau’s journey, whether to reconnect with a young love (Julia Antonelli/Parker Posey) or find a lost/dead father (Julian Richings, maybe?) or stand up to his mother, but each plot point is subverted in ways that deflate: an unsexy tryst in his mother’s bed, a father unceremoniously killed (probably?), a mother miraculously alive and presiding over a trial to prove Beau is a bad son. Mysteries are smothered. Beau’s sense of purpose, which arrives halfway through the film, is snuffed out.
Is Beau too unnerving to be funny? Too scattered to be compelling? Hell no. Beau is funny because it’s unnerving. A man (Denis Ménochet) with debilitating PTSD going on a Rambo-style rampage is hilarious, if your sense of humor is dark enough. Death by sex? Teenagers (Kylie Rogers & Hailey Squires) smoking blunts and antagonizing a grown man? Stalking away awkwardly from attempted murder? Come to think of it, maybe none of this is funny. Maybe I am a sick puppy…naaah.
Beau’s querulous, empty affect, his inability to take charge, the utter pointlessness of his life and putative death is all part of the nightmare magic of the film. What could be more bleak than your mother faking her death just to guilt trip you? What could be funnier?
As a last note, I’ve been using the word nightmare a lot, and I feel that’s worth highlighting, because Beau is indeed a work of magical realism. It is a dream that insists it is reality. In fact, I believe it is Beau Wasserman’s paranoid delusions made into reality. Perhaps this is my own personal bias - since I love the movement so - but I think Beau is Afraid shares space with Expressionist works such as Edvard Munch’s The Scream or Robert Wiene’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. The world of Beau is Afraid is filtered through the title character’s fearful and delusional perspective, the horrifying and farcical events shaped by his paranoid fantasies.
I do not know if this will help all of you prospective viewers - you still have to be willing to endure three hours of film, and who has time these days? - but maybe appreciating Beau as non-literal will make it easier when you are confronted with a giant penis monster. Maybe knowing it’s meant to be a comedy will permit a few of you to laugh when you see this; solidarity for the sick puppies. Maybe, if I’ve done my job as a writer, you all will give Beau a chance. I’m sure you and all your scarred psyches will thank Ari.