Beau is AfraidWhat makes people afraid? An instinctual "fight or flight" response? Apprehension about the unknown? Conditioning from a young age? Beau is Afraid is essentially a three-hour long anxiety attack manifested on the screen, taking the form of an ultra-black comedy. Written and directed by Ari Aster, it is the story of the eponymous Beau Wasserman (Joaquin Phoenix) on a perilous journey to attend the funeral of his mother, Mona (Patti LuPone). The two share a complicated relationship, and Beau's internal battle over his feelings toward his mother appear to fuel the madness found in the world around him, as everything under the sun is out to hurt him and seems predisposed to keep him from attending the funeral.
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Since his monumental horror debut, Hereditary, and its follow up, Midsommar, Ari Aster has been seen as a sort of wunderkind of dread and terror-laden filmmaking. And although Beau is Afraid is not a horror movie per se, these aspects nevertheless shine through in spades. Embracing elements from the dysfunctional family of Hereditary and the chilling emotional manipulation present in Midsommar, Beau is Afraid banks hard into the surreal. While supernatural and/or outlandish elements existed in Aster's prior films, this movie is essentially a waking nightmare, where logic sometimes just taps out. It wouldn't be so far fetched to describe Beau is Afraid as an extended episode of "Mr. Bean" by way of Franz Kafka, viewed through the lens of Pink Floyd The Wall. Beau is stricken by a paralyzing anxiety, and through the course of Beau is Afraid, it is obvious that this comes from emotional abuse inflicted on him by his overbearing mother, who has been dominating every aspect of his life, convincing him that his every action is subject to scrutiny and chastisement. At first glance, it appears that Beau is simply unwilling to make a choice in his life for fear of unintended consequences, ironically resulting in something even worse transpiring in turn for him. Even before he learns of his mother's violent death--Aster must have a thing for head trauma--he is supposed to be visiting his mother on the anniversary of his father's death, which happened at the moment of Beau's conception. The very event itself is infused with guilt, and Beau has been led to believe that he is at fault for his father's death, and that the heart condition that claimed his father is...wait for it...hereditary. Flashbacks reveal that Mona and Beau would share a bed while on vacation, and the things that Mona says to her son seem more like the kinds of observations a partner would share instead, infusing the whole awkward relationship with an Oedipal component. In these flashbacks, the young Beau (Armen Nahapetian) recalls an encounter with a strange girl about his age named Elaine Bray (Julia Antonelli), who looks more than a bit like this younger version of Mona (Zoe Lister-Jones). Elaine flirts with Beau and gifts him a Polaroid, asking him to "wait for her", meaning that he should remain a virgin. Thus Beau's anxiety is further steeped in sexual repression, inexorably linked with his mother. Combined with the absence of a father figure, Beau's inner conflict mirrors a similar theme found in Pink Floyd The Wall. ("Mother, should I build the wall", indeed.)
Beau bumbles and stumbles from scenario to scenario, each escalating in tension and mania, with any action Beau takes only seeming to make things worse. (One imagines Rowan Atkinson in the role of Beau.) We first meet Beau in a therapy session with his psychiatrist (Stephen McKinley Henderson), who seems just a bit too quick to write "scripts" for Beau's anxiety. (And here's a mind screw for you: Perhaps everything that follows is just a hallucination brought on by the experimental drug prescribed to him?) Beau panics when he discovers that when he is in need of the medicine, his apartment's water has been shut off, and he's been advised to "ALWAYS TAKE WITH WATER". Panicked even more, he races out of his apartment to get a bottle from the shop across the street, braving all manner of weirdos and psychos in the short walk, only to discover that his credit card is arbitrarily declined. While he scours his pockets for change, a flood of said weirdos and psychos flood his apartment and lock him out, destroying his humble abode overnight. Even from the start, it seems like the whole world is out to destroy Beau, and any little slip in control could be fatal. So despite being exaggerated, this perfectly exemplifies the feeling of having an anxiety attack; we're just witnessing it given flesh, as it were in Beau is Afraid. Some time later, Beau is injured and cared for by an affluent couple: an ebullient surgeon named Roger (Nathan Lane)--who is also a bit too loose with dosing out painkillers--and his overly motherly wife, Grace (Amy Ryan). They put up Beau in the room of their embittered daughter, Toni (Kylie Rogers), despite the bedroom of their late son being vacant, promising to drive him to Wasserton for the funeral when he is recovered. But Beau cannot wait any longer, having been browbeaten by her attorney--who Beau refers to as "Dr. Cohen" (Richard Kind)--because his mother put a condition in her will that she not be buried without her son present. Subsequently, the pressure is constantly being ratcheted up for Beau, but despite every step toward the funerary finish line, hurdle after hurdle blocks Beau's progress. One has but to look at the works of Franz Kafka, notably "The Trial", to see the inescapable similarities, where it is often the case that something simple becomes excessively complicated, akin to flailing in quicksand. It also reminds me of a novel by Kazuo Ishiguro called "The Unconsoled", where a pianist is stymied at every turn from performing and is torn between two needs; how like Beau. And even when Beau is challenged to "perform" with an older Elaine (Parker Posey), his worst fears of an orgasm that brings death is twisted around to become somehow even worse than he could have imagined. (You'll never hear Mariah Carey's "Always Be My Baby" the same way again.) Finally, wracked with guilt, Beau is put on trial for all of his sins--imagined or inflicted upon him--to be accounted for. The guilt reaches its apex, and the love of a mother is inverted. Beau is afraid...and he has every right to be, when those whom you should trust implicitly treat you as nothing more than a vessel for them to pour in their hatred.
Recommended for: Fans of a strange and deliciously uncomfortable "tragicomedy" that brings the best aspects from Ari Aster's prior films into a banquet of awkwardness and Freudian metaphor, pushed to the extreme. It's refreshing to see a movie like Beau is Afraid be so unapologetically weird and disquieting, refusing to conform to rote storytelling structure or to let us ease into our seats and tune out the madness. The surreal imagery and the ever-so-slightly off setting reminds me a bit of the delightful Strawberry Mansion, while the pervasive sense of dread should appeal to fans of Michael Haneke as well. I haven't found myself laughing at so many inappropriate scenes so often in quite a while.
Beau bumbles and stumbles from scenario to scenario, each escalating in tension and mania, with any action Beau takes only seeming to make things worse. (One imagines Rowan Atkinson in the role of Beau.) We first meet Beau in a therapy session with his psychiatrist (Stephen McKinley Henderson), who seems just a bit too quick to write "scripts" for Beau's anxiety. (And here's a mind screw for you: Perhaps everything that follows is just a hallucination brought on by the experimental drug prescribed to him?) Beau panics when he discovers that when he is in need of the medicine, his apartment's water has been shut off, and he's been advised to "ALWAYS TAKE WITH WATER". Panicked even more, he races out of his apartment to get a bottle from the shop across the street, braving all manner of weirdos and psychos in the short walk, only to discover that his credit card is arbitrarily declined. While he scours his pockets for change, a flood of said weirdos and psychos flood his apartment and lock him out, destroying his humble abode overnight. Even from the start, it seems like the whole world is out to destroy Beau, and any little slip in control could be fatal. So despite being exaggerated, this perfectly exemplifies the feeling of having an anxiety attack; we're just witnessing it given flesh, as it were in Beau is Afraid. Some time later, Beau is injured and cared for by an affluent couple: an ebullient surgeon named Roger (Nathan Lane)--who is also a bit too loose with dosing out painkillers--and his overly motherly wife, Grace (Amy Ryan). They put up Beau in the room of their embittered daughter, Toni (Kylie Rogers), despite the bedroom of their late son being vacant, promising to drive him to Wasserton for the funeral when he is recovered. But Beau cannot wait any longer, having been browbeaten by her attorney--who Beau refers to as "Dr. Cohen" (Richard Kind)--because his mother put a condition in her will that she not be buried without her son present. Subsequently, the pressure is constantly being ratcheted up for Beau, but despite every step toward the funerary finish line, hurdle after hurdle blocks Beau's progress. One has but to look at the works of Franz Kafka, notably "The Trial", to see the inescapable similarities, where it is often the case that something simple becomes excessively complicated, akin to flailing in quicksand. It also reminds me of a novel by Kazuo Ishiguro called "The Unconsoled", where a pianist is stymied at every turn from performing and is torn between two needs; how like Beau. And even when Beau is challenged to "perform" with an older Elaine (Parker Posey), his worst fears of an orgasm that brings death is twisted around to become somehow even worse than he could have imagined. (You'll never hear Mariah Carey's "Always Be My Baby" the same way again.) Finally, wracked with guilt, Beau is put on trial for all of his sins--imagined or inflicted upon him--to be accounted for. The guilt reaches its apex, and the love of a mother is inverted. Beau is afraid...and he has every right to be, when those whom you should trust implicitly treat you as nothing more than a vessel for them to pour in their hatred.
Recommended for: Fans of a strange and deliciously uncomfortable "tragicomedy" that brings the best aspects from Ari Aster's prior films into a banquet of awkwardness and Freudian metaphor, pushed to the extreme. It's refreshing to see a movie like Beau is Afraid be so unapologetically weird and disquieting, refusing to conform to rote storytelling structure or to let us ease into our seats and tune out the madness. The surreal imagery and the ever-so-slightly off setting reminds me a bit of the delightful Strawberry Mansion, while the pervasive sense of dread should appeal to fans of Michael Haneke as well. I haven't found myself laughing at so many inappropriate scenes so often in quite a while.