Beau is Afraid (R, 179 minutes)
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3 stars
I'll preface this by saying I'm not entirely sure what's real in Beau is Afraid, what isn't, and what everything means. If you can interpret it, let me know.
But whatever else this film is, it's certainly a hell of a ride, definitely not for all tastes.
Writer-director Ari Aster is known for his horror films Hereditary (2018) and Midsommar (2019) that weren't your standard slasher or sequel. Beau is Afraid has a few moments of "traditional" horror - one scene in an attic in particular - but it's a very strange film indeed.
Aster has said, "It's like a Jewish Lord of the Rings but he's just going to his mom's house. I want to put you in the experience of being a loser."
While there's certainly a questing aspect to the film, it's more of an anxiety-prone's man Oedipal nightmare, the ultimate in Jewish-mother stories, told in a disjointed and often surreal way. Aster might not appreciate the comparison but there's a bit of a David Lynch feeling at times.
Some will hate Beau is Afraid, and it does seem overlong and self-indulgent and wilfully obscure, but if you're willing to go along for the ride, it's certainly unusual.
The story jumps around in time, punctuated by a series of blackouts. It does, however, begin at the beginning, with a birth experienced from the point of view of the baby.
It does seem safe to say that, like the old psychology joke, if it isn't one thing, it's your mother - or, rather, Beau's.
That baby grown up is Beau (Joaquin Phoenix), an intensely anxious middle-aged man who regularly sees a psychiatrist. His mother Mona (Patti LuPone) is a fabulously wealthy businesswoman but he lives alone in a squalid apartment in a dirty, crime-ridden, run-down city neighbourhood. Sirens blare loudly all night and even when he's in bed trying to sleep ,a neighbour keeps leaving notes under his door telling him to keep the noise down.
His mother veers between smothering declarations of love and inflicting massive guilt trips on him so perhaps it's not too surprising he's chosen to live some distance away. When a series of nightmarish mishaps prevent him from going on a promised visit to her, she's not happy.
Eventually he finds out she's died (killed in a particularly bizarre and grotesque way). He is, not unexpectedly, expected to attend the funeral - getting a brutal telephone dressing-down from his mother's lawyer (Richard Kind) even as he tries to explain the perfectly valid reason he hasn't been able to arrive yet.
And there's more - much more.
This is an episodic film, with flashbacks to Beau's adolescence (with Beau and his mother played by the younger Armen Nahapetian and Zoe Lister-Jones, respectively).
Phoenix's character certainly goes through a lot, from his mother's explanation of why his father isn't alive (it has to do with how Beau was conceived, as if he didn't have enough guilt to deal with), to having his apartment invaded and trashed by a bunch of homeless people (curiously, his computer is damaged but not stolen) to being hit by a motor vehicle and waking up in the home of an almost creepily nice and generous couple (Nathan Lane and Amy Ryan) who also house a surly teenage daughter (Amy Ryan) and their dead son's mentally unstable army comrade Jeeves (Denis Ménochet).
As for what exactly is going on in Beau's life and what might be going on his mind and what it all means - your guess is as good as mine. It does seem safe to say that, like the old psychology joke, if it isn't one thing, it's your mother - or, rather, Beau's
Then there's the animated sequence and the troupe of travelling players putting on a performance in a forest and much more besides.
For all its puzzlements and frustrations, this is an experience and I'm glad such films still get made.