Written and directed by Ari Aster, 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. Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Patti LuPone, Amy Ryan, Nathan Lane, Kylie Rogers, Denis Ménochet, Parker Posey, Zoe Lister-Jones, Armen Nahapetian, Julia Antonelli, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Richard Kind and Hayley Squires.
If you’re heading into what is basically Ari Aster’s equivalent of an epic, from the director of Hereditary and Midsommar, and expecting it not to be intensely strange, then you’ve arrived at drastically the wrong film. Beau is Afraid is pushing the border of weird and heading into just full on nuts, in more ways than one. It’s immediately reminiscent of Charlie Kaufman’s iconic penchant for rabbit hole, unpredictable and metaphorical storytelling, it’s straight out of the Synedoche, New York playbook. It exists within an uncooperative world, much like the work of David Lynch or Darren Aronofsky, they are not designed to take clear paths, they’re made to make things tricky both for their characters and viewers alike.
With Beau is Afraid, Aster is playing to the beat of his own drum, he’s not going to give you straight answers or clear logic, it’s an old-fashioned wandering, sporadic and volatile style of storytelling. Unquestionably, that’s not going to work for a large portion of viewers, and it’s distinctly not a film made for mainstream audiences, which is absolutely fine. That’s not to say that everything about Beau is Afraid is simply divisive whether you’re a film person or not, there are plenty of choices which truly just fall flat. Particularly his strange obsession with testicles, the root of it makes sense thematically but the ways in which he chooses to explore it visually, are quite childish.
Another element that will always give viewers pause is the runtime, it is coming in long at almost three hours but surprisingly, while the first hour moves somewhat slow, it’s then smooth sailing. Part of the reason for that is the introduction of Patti LuPone’s iteration of Beau’s (Joaquin Phoenix) Mother Mona. While most of the performances in the film hit those necessary and fun quirky notes, LuPone digs deeper, there’s something so vicious and feral about her portrayal. She’s genuinely fantastic and it makes you pine for a version of this film that exists in an average world, purely following the broken relationship between mother and son. Especially playing opposite Phoenix, who at this point you know you’re always going to get gold because he’s such a reliably flexible and intense actor. The two of them together is a terrific sight to behold.
There’s also a crazy list of wonderful actors filling out the rest of the film, Amy Ryan and Stephen McKinley Henderson are particular highlights. Visually the film really embraces the idea of storytelling, it genuinely does feel like a piece of epic literature come to life, with a few occasional exceptions. It’s highly detailed, there’s great effects work, it’s full of colour and vibrancy, and it wanders through such different worlds that it’s constantly keeping one foot off of the ground. It has a basis of reality but is not tethered to it. It does a good job of reflecting the different themes from repression, depression, anxiety, emotional manipulation, submission and fear.
Beau is Afraid is undeniably and unapologetically weird but it works. There may be a few choices that don’t fit and take away from the atmosphere overall but it unexpectedly worms its way under your skin. It’s led by yet another memorable and heightened performance from Joaquin Phoenix, although Patti LuPone steals the spotlight with her genuinely excellent portrayal. It’s simply one of those films that won’t be for everyone, it will be an odd delight for those who click with it and probably severely frustrating for those that don’t.
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