Gird your loins, your bladder, and your relationship with your therapist: Beau Is Afraid is coming.
From the A24 auteur who brought you Hereditary and Midsommar, Ari Aster, comes a three-hour journey through the many anxieties of Beau (Joaquin Phoenix). A man in his 50s with a very complicated relationship with his domineering mother (Patti LuPone), Beau lives in solo squalor in his apartment, surrounded by a horror-show menagerie of the chronically anxious' worst-case scenarios both indoors and out. He must embark on a journey, with the audience brought along for the ride — one that is funny, scary, deeply weird, and also maybe boring, according to the reviews. Suffice to say, Beau Is Afraid is likely to be incredibly divisive.
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Here's a little bit of what the critics said about the film, with minimal plot spoilers and some mood spoilers.
As he has in his first two films, Aster has paired powerful performers with a script that plunges into the surreal and the psychological. His movies feel like a dare, challenging audiences with visuals of beautiful bodies destroyed by self-loathing, audio that creeps under your skin, and plot twists that feel wrong yet oh, so terribly right. ... This is the world we know at its very worst... and at its most chaotically fun. Still, I can't promise you'll enjoy Beau Is Afraid. I can promise it'll fuck you up.
But don't worry! It is a comedy!
[A]bove all else, what makes Beau Is Afraid such a riveting watch is that it’s funny and terrifying in equal measure, often in the same moments. It achieves what Joker – which featured Phoenix’s Oscar-winning performance – failed to with jarring tone, practically transforming Aster’s signature close ups, of dead faces frozen in moments of fear and anguish, into Greek comedy masks. ... [I]t’s the kind of movie worth recommending for its ambition alone, merely to witness the audacious result of anxious self-loathing writ large across the silver screen, without an ounce of restraint. That it’s also a remarkably well-crafted horror-comedy is a cherry on top.
There will be those who simply cannot stand the fraught world Aster has created here, and there will be others who are fully on board with what the filmmaker is dishing out. No matter the reaction, this is a film that begs for conversation and analysis and plenty of pondering. And it's more accessible than you might think, despite all the lunacy. Aster is primarily known as a horror filmmaker, and while "Beau" is not a horror film, there's plenty of the horrific here to knock us for a loop. Beau is afraid, and you will be, too.
Consequence, Clint Worthington:
Beau Is Afraid is ostensibly Aster’s “comedy,” though it’s tinged with the same phantasmagoria as his previous efforts: Here, he’s stepping pretty visibly into Charlie Kaufman territory, using the language of cinema to externalize his deep-seated anxieties about his mother, his life, and every anxiety he’s ever had. ... It should also be stressed that, despite Aster’s pedigree and the suffocating anxiety of the situations Beau finds himself in, Beau is Afraid is also deeply, bleakly funny. Fiona Crombie’s production design sits Beau in a ridiculous world of absurd posters and signs ... and the sheer volume of Beau’s misfortunes become funnier the taller they’re stacked.
Almost every review I've found so far namechecks Charlie Kaufman, so just take that as read. But that doesn't guarantee a rave review, of course.
Aster tracks his titular antihero from birth to death, from psychoanalysis to this cheeky subversion of Freud, where the child assumes responsibility for his parents’ trauma, rather than the other way around. But he’s crammed so many ideas into this unwieldy container, the film capsizes. In retrospect, “Hereditary” did too, but we forgave it because its finale was frightening, at least. Here, wrapping with an anticlimax seems to be Aster’s idea of a joke.
"Running at over three hours, Beau Is Afraid is a colossal recovered memory of mock Oedipal agony which is scary, boring and sad in approximate proportions of 1 to 4 to 2. It’s a movie in which Aster has surrendered some of his own originality and distinction for an indulgent, derivative flourish that seems to pastiche Charlie Kaufman or Darren Aronofsky’s crazy Mother! or maybe even Richard Kelly’s much controverted Southland Tales."
Even the haterade-chugging Bradshaw has to agree on one point, though. Freudian freakshow horror-comedy needs its mothers (!) to loom large, and both Zoe Lister-Jones (who plays Beau's mother in flashback) and Broadway legend Patti LuPone are more than up to the task of taking on the role of Aster's Beau's mother.
AwardsWatch, Sophia Ciminello:
LuPone is absolutely terrifying in this film. She’s a towering mogul of a mother whose son exists to disappoint her. LuPone’s presence and brilliant choices as an actress make everything Beau is experiencing click into place. Beau’s fears and the bad luck that befalls him grow to feel even more outlandish and comical, but Phoenix’s performance makes them feel real and grounded in this utterly chaotic world. ... If the magical realism, difficult emotions, and detailed symbols feel a bit intense, that’s entirely warranted. Beau Is Afraid is an exhausting experience with too many details to take in in one sitting alone, but that’s also the point.
In fact, more than one reviewer noted that no matter how long the film is, there's no question that it will reward repeat viewings.
Any admirer of “Hereditary” and “Midsommar” knows those movies are better understood with multiple viewings and a closer look at the mechanics each time. Part of Aster’s extraordinary skill as an entertainer, when revealing these plots about horrific relationships, is in playing with how much an audience gets on their first viewing, as opposed to their second or third. I’m curious, most of all, how the emotions within “Beau Is Afraid” will show more intricacy, or collapse under their weight, once all three hours of it feels more familiar.
Beau Is Afraid is in theaters April 21.
