Beau Is Afraid (15)

Middle-aged worrywart Beau Wassermann is preparing to take a flight to see his mother when he becomes the victim of a bizarre crime. Evicted from his rundown apartment on to streets filled with violence, Beau collides with respected surgeon Roger and his wife Grace and they provide temporary sanctuary from the psychological storm with their troubled daughter Toni.

LondonNet Film Review

Beau Is Afraid (15) Film Review from LondonNet

>Being alone. Blood. Confined spaces. Crowds. Darkness. Death. Failure. Flying. Heights. Hypodermic needles. Intimacy. Public speaking. Snakes. Spiders. Thunder and lightning. The unknown. Fears are deep-rooted in the human condition and sometimes override cool, rational thought. In his stylish features Hereditary and Midsommar, writer-director Ari Aster plundered universal fears for skin-prickling discomfort. He repeats the trick, with considerably less narrative clarity, in the hallucinogenic horror comedy Beau Is Afraid, a bamboozling and beguiling exercise in self-reflection and self-indulgence tethered to a fiercely committed lead performance from Joaquin Phoenix as the titular worrywart…

A running time close to three hours will be a justifiable fear for some audiences and Aster’s picture certainly feels bloated. However, this madcap odyssey into the mind of a damaged everyman is never dull, even when we are trapped in limbo between heightened reality and full-blown lunacy. An episodic structure and flashes of directorial verve including a prolonged stop-motion sequence, masterminded by animators Cristobal Leon and Joaquín Cocina, demand attention as coherence is ritually sacrificed before our bewildered eyes, culminating in a monstrous encounter in an attic that cannot be unseen.

Imperious single mother Mona Wassermann (Zoe Lister-Jones) is a constant companion to her teenage son Beau (Armen Nahapetian). She schools Beau to consider her love as a life raft in a sea of danger and disappointment and reminds her boy that his father died mid-coitus courtesy of a heart murmur that he inherited through the genetic lottery. It is little surprise that when Beau experiences the first pangs of romance, he strays no further than a tentative kiss.

Now middle-aged and riddled with anxiety, Beau (Phoenix) visits a kindly psychiatrist (Stephen McKinley Henderson) ahead of a trip home to see his mother (Patti Lupone), who presides over a pharmaceutical empire. Alas, Beau oversleeps and in the frantic dash to the airport, he is the victim of a bizarre crime. He telephones his mother for advice about calling the police and missing his flight – “I think you’ll do the right thing, sweetheart,” she tersely responds – and best laid plans spiral of control. Evicted from his rundown apartment on to streets filled with violence, Beau collides with respected surgeon Roger (Nathan Lane) and his wife Grace (Amy Ryan) and they provide temporary sanctuary from the psychological storm with their troubled daughter Toni (Kylie Rogers).

Beau Is Afraid is a wildly ambitious mood piece that defies categorisation or succinct explanation. Gobs are repeatedly smacked by Aster’s unwillingness to restrict himself to storytelling convention, abetted by Phoenix’s mesmerising theatrics. It is an admirable statement of intent that results in a sharply divisive work open to feverish debate or infuriated dismissal. Every strong reaction is justified. Art should always make you feel something, even if in this case, it’s dizziness and confusion.

– Sarah Lee