164) NEW HORROR RELEASES - Beau is Afraid (2023)

"I really thought I was gonna die, my whole life."

Director

Ari Aster

Cast

Joaquin Phoenix - Beau Wassermann

Patti LuPone - Mona Wassermann

Nathan Lane - Roger

Amy Ryan - Grace

Parker Posey - Elaine
Denis Ménochet - Jeeves
Stephen McKinley Henderson - The Therapist
Richard Kind - Dr. Cohen

After watching director Ari Aster's previous films, "Hereditary" (2018) and "Midsommar" (2019), along with his most recent movie, "Beau is Afraid," I have the strong impression he sees no hope in anything. At least, that's how the stories in these three movies come across.  

As far as these movies go, there's no hope in religion, there's no hope in society, there's no hope in relationships, nor is there any hope from our family. Everything somehow leads to man's misery. And there's not much we can do about it no matter how much we strive for control. Everything just leads to hardship, anguish, and maybe death. The more we try to cope with and remedy our problems and difficulties, the more disappointment there is, at least potentially. And then we die. 

There's nothing uplifting about Aster's movies. The world is terrible and there's nothing we can profit from it, spiritually or otherwise. 

His films are certainly effective. They leave an impression, but it took me a couple viewings of his two previous movies to come up with the impressions I have. 

I watched "Beau is Afraid" last night (August 18th) and I've been thinking about it all day today. 

The story follows an upper-middle aged man, Beau Wasserman (Joaquin Phoenix), along his journey to his mother's funeral. 

Beau suffers from severe anxiety and paranoia.

His father died from a heart murmur on the night Beau was conceived. So, he grew up fatherless.

His mother, Mona (Patti LuPone) is a well-known wealthy businesswoman who successfully created a huge business empire. 

When he was a teenager, Beau and his mom took a vacation together during which time he meets a girl named Elaine. They both fall in love and promise each other they'll remain virgins until they meet again as adults. 

The story begins with Beau living alone in a run-down apartment located in a dangerous part of the city. 

He's hesitant to go outside but does when necessary. 

On the anniversary of his dad's death, Beau is scheduled to fly out to visit his mother.

After a sleepless night thanks to his neighbor blasting music in retaliation for mistakenly thinking Beau is playing music too loudly during the night, Beau oversleeps. 

He struggles to get his suitcase packed and out the door on time to make his flight.

As he leaves his apartment with suitcase in hand and his key in the door to lock it, he forgets something and rushes back in. It only takes him a few seconds to grab what he needed. However, when he returns to the door, his suitcase and keys are missing.

Joaquin Phoenix as 'Beau Wassermann' in "Beau is Afraid." 

He calls to let his mom know about the situation. Of course, she's sorely disappointed. 

Soon after, Beau gets locked out of his building, and watches from the street as all the riffraff from around his block slowly make their way inside his building and invade his apartment for the night. 

The next morning after sleeping on his fire escape, Beau manages to get back into his apartment. His unwanted company is gone, but they left his place trashed.

Beau draws a bath, and then calls his mother while the tub is filling. However, a UPS delivery man answers his mom's phone. 

He tells Beau that he was making a delivery and found his mother dead in her home. Evidently, a chandelier fell from the ceiling and decapitated her. The UPS man insists he had nothing to do with it. 

Shocked and speechless at the news, Beau slips into his overflowing bathtub to try and calm down. 

When he does, he sees an intruder clinging in the space above his tub between the wall and the ceiling.

After the strangers falls and attacks him, Beau runs out of the apartment naked and frantic. A cop pulls his gun out and fires at Beau thinking he's a notorious homicidal murderer that has been randomly stabbing people on the street mentioned previously in the story.  Beau is then hit by a food truck. 

He wakes up days later in the house of a married couple, Roger and Grace (Nathan Lane and Amy Ryan). 

They live with their teenage daughter, Toni (Kylie Rogers), who's full of angst and trouble. Their son was killed in action during his time in the military. However, they care for their son's military friend, Jeeves (Denis Ménochet) whose time in the service left him mentally unstable.

Beau calls his mom's attorney, Dr. Cohen (Richard Kind), who admonishes him for not yet showing up to his mom's house and thereby holding up the funeral. He tells Beau Jewish custom mandates that deceased bodies must be laid to rest right away. However, Mona's last wish was to not be buried without her son's presence. 

So, Beau is anxious to fly out to his mother's estate.  

Roger, who is a doctor of some kind, insists Beau is in no shape to fly, and needs to continue rest for the time being. Instead, Roger promises to drive Beau to his mother's funeral the following day.  

However, a medical emergency arises, and Roger postpones their car trip to Mona's estate. 

When it's time for Beau to leave the care of Grace and Roger, Toni tries to make him to drink a can of paint with her. 

He refuses as she drinks the paint herself, which kills her. Grace walks into the room and sees Beau standing over her daughter, both covered in paint and blames him for killing Toni. Freaked out, and not knowing what to do, he runs away into a nearby forest. Grace sends Jeeves after him. 

Soon, Beau finds he's lost in the woods before stumbling upon a rural theatrical group called "The Orphans of the Forest."

The actors welcome Beau into their group and invite him to a play rehearsal. 

While watching this production, he begins to imagine himself as the protagonist of the story. 

During the rehearsal, a stranger approaches Beau claiming he knows his father, and that his father is still alive. 

Just then, Jeeves attacks the acting troupe, killing several members. Beau escapes deeper into the woods relatively unharmed. 

He's able to hitchhike his way to his mother's estate. By the time he arrives, the funeral is over. 

Later that evening, another mourner arrives late. Then things take an even darker surreal turn. 

The premise is one long worst-case scenario strung together in the mind of an overly anxious and paranoid person. 

The fear and anxiety doesn't subside. It festers and boils over. It's left to the audience to determine whether Beau's experiences are a delusion in in his neurotic mind, or if they're actually happening.  

To Beau, uncertainties, anxieties, worries, speculations, and undesirable events out of our control are terrors that dissolve boundaries. To the rest of us, as John Lennon once pointed out, "life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."

The question I'm left with is what is Beau afraid of? And where did this fear come from? The answer might be in the details.

Beau relies on his mother, even in his adult years.

In the scene where Beau's keys suddenly go missing at the worst possible time, causing him to panic, he calls and asks his mom what she thinks he ought to do. 

Clearly frustrated, she gives Beau a generic answer that he'll make the right decision, and then hangs up. So, Beau is left to figure things out on his own. 

And then when he calls her back, she's dead.

I think things take a worst turn once he realizes he has to live life without his mother. Life is completely left up to him now. 

The opening shot of the movie is Beau's blurred point of view during his birth. His mom's muffled screams about why her baby isn't breathing are heard. Constant chaotic noise continues through the film. 

After that opening shot, the story transitions to Beau visiting his therapist (Stephen McKinley Henderson). We're given a small peak into how Beau thinks which sets the tone albeit in a simple way.

He asks his therapist, "I accidentally drank mouthwash Friday night. You can't get stomach cancer that way?"
"Not from one time," the therapist responds.
"I drank a mouthful a couple of weeks ago too."
"I'm sure it's fine."

Amy Ryan as 'Grace.'

In Beau's mind, there's very little, if any, reprieve from the constant noise and the way each of his experiences ends in a worst-case scenario. They're the kinds of doom and gloom scenarios that start off plausible and quickly become insane, far-fetched and improbable. And they only grow worse and more unbelievable as the story progresses. 

In an early scene when Beau is walking through the lobby of his apartment, the words "Hail Satan, Shoot Dope, Kill children, F**k the Pope," are seen spray painted on the wall. 

I don't know if this is how Aster sees modern society's mentality or not? If so, he's not far off. 

Most of modern Western society views evil as good, and good as evil. If current backwards mentalities could be summed up in one sentence, that might be it. Of course, that would drive any person into a state of high anxiety.

Phoenix's performance is great. He makes his character impressively engrossing and tragic. "Beau is Afraid" reminds me a bit of Anthony Hopkins' performance in the 2021 movie "The Father." Like Hopkin's movie, the audience experiences the story just as disjointed and confusing as the main character is experiencing it. 

The movie is wonderfully executed as one thing leads to another. 

But, as I mentioned before, Aster's films come across as despairingly cynical of those things that bring fulfillment - family life, religion, finding one's place in society, and relationships. Perhaps, awful circumstances beyond our control will hold us back. But the reality is these things carry us through those things. They'll only lead to despair if we let them. 

"Beau is Afraid" is a sad look at reality that mirrors the sad mentality of modern Western society. 

Aside from that, "Beau is Afraid" is a surreal depiction which left me, like Beau, wondering what was real and what wasn't. Or, if someone else had anything to do with it.