BEAU IS AFRAID - A Review

Beau, here shown only a little afraid.

Rating: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐

Ari Aster has made three feature films so far. They're all horror films. And all three have, at their core, been about grief. Hereditary was, as the title suggests, about lineage. Midsommar tackled catharsis, which felt like a natural next step. His latest, Beau is Afraid, takes two steps back in order to focus on guilt, which in our titular character's existence is a stand-in until the loss gets here. Early on Beau's therapist asks him if he has ever wanted his mother, the origin of his crippling anxiety, to die. You can see on his panicked face that simply hearing the question has started a new ulcer in his gut. If she knew he'd even been asked he would probably turn to dust.

Beau (the always-committed-to-the-point-of-concern Joaquin Phoenix) is a shriveled husk of a man who speaks one register above a whispered apology and is overdue for a visit to see his mother (it's been seven months). He lives in an unnamed city that is basically the Fox News description of San Francisco: a lawless hellscape where corpses litter the street, junkies shoot up around every corner and every time you go outside you are chased by the same tattooed maniac. The satire is overt and cartoonish, and it makes you question everything you see Beau go through. How real is any of this? How much trauma has he endured? And when is he going to burst?

Beau oversleeps, missing his flight and bringing a fresh injection of the bad feels from his mother (Broadway legend Patti LuPone, sublimely cast). Beau spirals, and it leads to one of the sweatiest series of events in recent history (Eat your heart out Uncut Gems!) - an action sequence made out of the everyday activity of crossing the street that has to be seen to be comprehended. Seriously, I wouldn't dare try. It's probably the highlight of the film, and like all great expositions it's really just a convoluted way to introduce Nathan Lane to the film. Beau ends up in the care of a surgeon and his wife (Lane and the always splendid Amy Ryan), following said turmoil where he sustains a great deal of physical trauma. Their home is a sterile utopia, which feels equally terrifying to Beau (or maybe I'm projecting, because it was scarier to me). Anyway, the important thing is he is off on his journey and things will only get weirder from there as noumenal and existential threats alike chase him back to his mother. And did I mention Nathan Lane is there sometimes? As are Parker Posey and Richard Kind and Stephen McKinley Henderson. So even if this didn't sound like your kind of movie (and if it didn't, it isn't), you're now definitely considering going (sorry).

The journey is as exhausting as it is rewarding. Studio A24 has made a name for themselves by embracing creator-controlled projects that largely skew dark. They've produced all of Aster's films so far, but this one really feels like a blank check. It's three hours of escalating panic and weirdness, with a third act that will surely leave audiences divided, and maybe in need of psychiatric counseling. On the A24 scale, it's somewhere between Under the Silver Lake and Men structurally, a meandering odyssey with a hyper-focused sense of dread. It's better than both of those films, but I suspect audiences will be just as mixed on it. There's also a healthy dose of I'm Thinking of Ending Things in there. (Somehow that one's not an A24... How has Netflix done more Charlie Kaufmans than A24? Would it just be too obvious?) Reality waxes and wains, but it's always showing you the truth of Beau's perspective.

It feels deeply personal, and impressionistic to the point that it is hard to review. Partially because of Aster's Jewish upbringing (which I am not qualified to speak on), but also because the reads of it are going to vary so wildly. Which is wonderful. Guilt and anxiety are the central themes, but how it builds on them is open to interpretation. To me Beau is Afraid is as much about the absence of a father as it is the overbearing nature of a mother. And how we as a nation would rather play pharmaceutical roulette than address our mental health issues head on. And the what-ifs of young love and missed opportunities. And those confusing things you hear or see as a child that stick and fester in your mind as you grow up.

Every viewer will leave with a different impression. And I can't wait to hear yours. (The shell-shocked teens I passed in the lobby were mulling it over instead of discussing what they were doing next, which I chalk up as a win for the film.) But there are two concrete takeaways from Beau is Afraid:

1. No one should take their mom to see this.

2. No head is safe in an Ari Aster movie.