29.12.23
A Serbian film. Kill List. Irreversible. There are many infamous films known for how fucked up they are. The problem, I think, with Beau is Afraid is that it is fucked up, surrealist and relatively mainstream all at once, due to the popularity and past horror success of director Ari Aster. In that sense, it is a letdown due to the pressure from past prestige and the terrifying originality of the director’s other celebrated works.
Aster’s third and most loftily ambitious film, Beau is Afraid is an intolerably long, self-indulgent tale that blurs the line between visual sadism and actual entertainment. Trolling the audience from the getgo with its two hours and 59-minute runtime, the film subjects viewers to Joaquin Phoenix’s full-blown and unadulterated role as Beau; a character of sheer exasperation, until finally, blessed relief comes in the form of Beau’s mother, played by stage legend Patti LuPone. Amongst a huge cast of stars, she surprisingly ends up being the highlight of the narrative slog, even if her character is the reason the build-up is so boring. The weighty themes that Beau is Afraid attempts to explore end up lost and meandering due to the film’s emotional hollowness and inability to evoke universal relatability.
The fantastic cast, including Nathan Lane, Amy Ryan and even less known actors like Hayley Squires (I, Daniel Blake), try their hardest but seem unclear on the actual meaning of what’s unfolding before them. Aster, known primarily still for his atmospheric horror films Midsommar and Hereditary, seems to think the despair itself is funny in an absurd, pathetic way. But as a huge fan of Aster’s previous work, I felt that none of the attempts at black comedy landed.
What comes across most strongly in Beau is Afraid is seeing it as a commentary on American Jewish neuroticism; one that tries to channel the sentiments of Woody Allen and Larry David by way of Freudian psychoanalysis. But these half-baked ideas never coalesce into anything meaningful. With such scale and expertise available, Aster had a golden chance to lead many intriguing concepts to fruition but instead blew them on a bloated film far less fascinating than what viewers have come to expect from him. Congested and infuriating, but with certain unforgettable moments, Beau is Afraid is a film I’d be unlikely to revisit even if forced.