Beau is Afraid

Beau Is Afraid

Writer & Director – Ari Aster

2023, United States-United Kingdom-Finland-Canada

Stars – Joaquin Phoenix, Patti LuPone, Amy Ryan

 

If my reservations about ‘Hereditary’ and ‘Midsommer’ was that the brilliance on show relied ultimately too heavily on tropes whilst suggesting something even better or wilder was possible, I thought aster would just do more of the same (which would still be a good thing) or something off-the-rails might be on the cards. (I’m thinking in the same arena as Brandon Cronenberg?) Certainly wilder, with ‘Beau is Afraid’ making no concessions: it’s all tease-the-meaning, a picaresque odyssey for a shambling, injured and anxious protagonist. Indeed, it is anxiety that leads the narrative, rather than just the nightmare logic on display, so there is lot of promise and irresolution, and it does gel a little, eventually, but not in any way that is bound to satisfy. WTF? you’ll say, both amused and frustrated, both positively and negatively.

 

It's overlong and the indulgence is the point, but where ‘Midsommer’ felt appropriately paced (I never felt the 3 hours was overlong), ‘Beau is Afraid’ just keeps going, a series of sections that all offer treats, but it’s true that the first is perhaps best. Because perpetual anxiety is the goal, not answers: not really. If ‘Uncut Gems’ ran on audience anxiety, this film runs on Beau’s, and the feel is something between, say, David Lynch (those creepily smiling medical men!), Lars Von Trier’s trolling and ‘Mother!’: that is to say that it won’t be everyone’s cup-of-black-humour-coffee, and he’s sure to lose a few fans built on his more conventional horror tropes, but it’s a film that will click even more on a second watch when knowing what it is.

 

 

Joaquin Phoenix is reliably great, schlubby, and a little weak-willed but personifying our perpetually apprehensive side that rarely takes centre stage or guides narratives. Especially in the first section where he must try and navigate the farcical piling on from an aggressive outside world (yes, prop the door open with the book; that’ll be okay…).  Slightly unkempt, slightly whiny, slightly defiant, worn down by his paranoia and neurosis. In fact, it’s the first section that best displays this. It moves from its start in urban dread and home invasion, it heads into benign/sinister imprisoned, Freudian confrontation, horror in the attic, folk setting, and autobiography as animated folklore, being theatrically judged… All satirical and verging on the wilfully baffling. Throughout, Phoenix projects intelligence and suffering. How afraid should Beau be?

 

A chief narrative of cinema is the reassurance of overcoming, so this adventure to always being thwarted goes against that, but always with the hint that Beau might be to blame himself, that this is all unreliable narrator stuff; but even this manifests the self-recriminatory side to a worrying personality. Even the black humour is less from schadenfreude than from relating to his misfortune or the absurdity of his humiliations.

 

Yes, it tests patience, and it’s brilliantly rendered and just when you find yourself opting out it will likely so something to drag you back in. Too wilfully abstract, perhaps, and happy to frustrate, which will lose many early on. But if you do click with the black comedy, the amusement of discomfort, and the slapstick of misfortune – and the audience I saw it with laughed many times – or if you enjoy trying to decode puzzle-boxes of symbolism and discomfort, then it will offer many joys and highlights.