Beau is Afraid Review | Inside This Movie There Are Two Wolves…

Beau is Afraid, the latest film from “elevated horror” master Ari Aster, is a work of art that exists in two worlds. In one, the film is a visually dazzling, thematically dense, and psychologically fascinating work free from compromise. On the other, it’s an aggressive, aggrandizing, punishingly long, sometimes problematic bit of cinematic overkill that’s as fun to sit through as a desk job. Beau is Afraid operates on its own unfiltered wavelength, which means that it will likely be heralded as a masterpiece and a disaster by equal numbers of people. It’s a film like Fight Club, Magnolia, Heaven’s Gate, Donnie Darko, or Jeanne Dielman, 23, Quai Du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles that will have its merits, faults, and larger meanings endlessly poured over and reassessed until the end of time. 

Right now, colour me deeply skeptical about the overall merit of Beau is Afraid. It’s a movie that rubbed me the wrong way at nearly every turn, but that’s also the point to some degree. Beau is Afraid is kitchen-sink filmmaking of the highest order; a work made by someone because they’ve finally been afforded carte blanche to do whatever they want on a grand scale and they might never get the same opportunity again. It’s simultaneously too much to take in all at once in terms of granular detail, but also unsubtly simplistic and reductive to a point where one wonders if its worth all the effort. It’s as overwhelming as free association acid jazz, but built on notes composed in a symphonic manner. Beau is Afraid has clearly been made by Aster with the intent that people who are into it will take a deep dive into every scene, shot, visual gag, edit, line of dialogue, etc, uncovering more and more every time. But for some, myself included, it will likely be years or decades before they might feel bored enough to to tackle it again.

Beau (Joaquin Phoenix) is a middle aged man who has a fantastical fear of everything, and quite often with good reason. He lives in a ludicrously dangerous neighbourhood, and anything that could go wrong for him often does in spectacular fashion. He can’t catch a break, which is why a series of mishaps causes him to miss a flight for a trip to see his mother on the anniversary of the death of the father he never met. Mom is audibly disappointed with her son, causing Beau’s guilt to spiral out of control. His situation at home gets exponentially worse, kicking off – in a very roundabout way – an unusual trip home.

Beau is Afraid is hard to describe without spoiling anything because Aster’s plot is made up of twist after twist after twist, each of them pinballing the titular character off into another different orbit. It moves through past and present, puts the main character through more side quests that an Homeric epic, and it operates on a sort of nightmare logic, where things don’t have to make perfect sense as long as they are somehow sinister, humorous, or symbolic (or a combination of all three). In short, Beau is Afraid is a lot to take in. It’s a challenge. It’s not the kind of work anyone could reasonably expect to be entertained by, but they can certainly find some delight in the engagement of it all. Aster (Hereditary, Midsommar) demands the viewer put in a lot of work while Beau goes about his existential crises.

These crises involve losing his keys and inadvertently running afoul of his neighbourhood’s homeless and mentally ill population, getting hit by a truck and nursed back to health by a creepy suburban couple (Nathan Lane, Amy Ryan) with an antisocial, pill popping daughter (Kylie Rogers) and a PTSD wrecked former soldier (Denis Menochet) living in a trailer in the backyard, and happening upon a travelling theatre company made up of orphans putting on plays in the middle of the woods. How much of this is real and how much is going on in Beau’s head is up for debate, but for the most part the skin of Aster’s film is an examination of guilt, the one emotion where both love and hatred can co-exist in frightening harmony.

And if the guilt that Beau experiences was all this was about, Aster’s film would be a successful, succinct freak out. But Beau is Afraid – which clocks in at one minute short of the three hour mark – is anything but successful or succinct. Instead of sticking with a single theme and exploring it well, Beau is Afraid tries to explore at least two dozen things half-assedly under the guise of seemingly nihilistic chaos. Aster wants to talk about Big Pharma, the exploitation of child performers, addiction, the housing crisis, metal illness, the effectiveness of therapy, unrequited love that spans decades, social anxiety, suburban complacency, the lies people tell themselves in relationships, parental neglect, man’s contempt for the suffering of others, sexual dysfunction, inherited health problems, and a lot more I am probably forgetting or choosing to black out. It’s a mess; a gloriously over the top, rigorously designed, and exceptionally filmed shit show full of broken or missing parts, anchored by a fully committed performance from Phoenix, playing a character just as confused as the rest of us.

Beau is Afraid certainly can’t be criticized for failing to place the viewer firmly into the shoes of its titular character. It does precisely that to an overwhelming degree, but that doesn’t mean the film is thoughtful. Aster constantly dangles threads and spins a bunch of plates, often without any sort of follow through or clearheaded direction. Nihilism can be visually arresting – and kudos to cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski for keeping up with all of it – but unless those feelings need to be tied to something deeper for it to be interesting. Without that, Beau is Afraid is just a bunch of stuff happening for most of its exhausting running time, one that wastes a fine and equally capable supporting cast that includes the likes of Patti LuPone and Zoe Lister-Jones as Beau’s mom at different points in his life, Parker Posey as the object of his affections, Stephen McKinley Henderson as his therapist, and Richard Kind as a particularly nasty lawyer. All of them are putting in great work, but they’re drowning in all this muchness.

And a lot of that material is somewhat suspect, especially Aster’s depiction of mental illness and homelessness, which leaves an awful taste in the mouth. The opening 45 minutes of Beau is Afraid is a crust-punk phantasmagoria of stereotypes people feel about big city life, and it comes at a time when class inequality is at an all time high. Not to soapbox too much on this, but while a lot of the scariness of Beau’s neighbourhood is absolutely coming from the character’s frightened point of view, Aster is clearly revelling in the chance to depict urban issues as utter debasements worthy of scorn, ridicule, and humiliation. It’s resolutely one note, but Aster won’t stop hitting it because he wants to make “feel bad” movies, not “feel good” movies. (Midsommar, particularly in its opening moments, is similarly inclined, but not nearly to the same degree as Beau is Afraid.) It’s condescending, contemptuous, and flat out nasty, and it doesn’t get better later on with its depiction of traumatized people as raving lunatics or those suffering from abandonment being shown as a bunch of misguided, humorous rubes. Beau is Afraid is an unfiltered movie that for some might dance a bit too close to being problematic, and it assuredly crossed the line from commentary into cruelty. As the film goes on, Aster does show similar disdain for the privileged and wealthy, but making this an equal opportunity exercise in misanthropy is a miscalculation for the ages.

But that’s the film Aster wants to make, and he’s giving it his all as a director. There are arguments to be made that this is a cutting satire about the nature of guilt and people who constantly run from their problems instead of facing them head on, and those takes wouldn’t be wrong. It’s just not particularly funny, perceptive, or scary, and that ultimate failure of tone comes down to the fact that the final huge twist Beau is Afraid has been building towards is one so obvious most viewers will have figured it out in the first twenty minutes. There’s so much visual overload and a cacophony of noise and for what? The most obvious ending possible? For a film this dense and composed, it’s a huge letdown to realize that only the first twenty and final thirty minutes of Beau is Afraid are built around any sort of cohesive, coherent, unifying point. That means nearly two and a half hours of Beau is Afraid is gorgeously empty, ballistics level filler. There’s a lot to be found in that filler, but this is not a case where the whole is better than the individual parts.

But while Beau is Afraid can be endlessly debated on quality and artistic grounds, it does succeed at being a conversation starter. Aster’s decisions are so wild and original that it’s easy to be in awe of the film without even liking it. And that’s the sign of a valid work of art if ever there was one; a case where one can deeply appreciate the craft and effort even in a losing cause. It’s meant to be debated, but I think I’ve had enough of Beau is Afraid for a long time to come. Do I like it? No, not at all. Is it art? Unquestionably, yes.

Beau is Afraid opens in theatres everywhere on Friday, April 21, 2023.