Review - Beau Is Afraid

Illustration by Kristian Hammerstad

Directed by: Ari Aster
Written by: Ari Aster
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Patti Lupone, Parker Posey
Running Time: 179 minutes
Rating: 3.5/5

Those who find themselves expecting the same Ari Aster that made a demented family portrait with Hereditary certainly won’t be finding he's doing the same exercise, but it also doesn’t go by way of the exotic folk horror route that Midsommar opted for. In Beau Is Afraid, Ari Aster tests himself out by making a darkly comedic tale about one’s anxiety manifesting all the worst fears one can imagine on the spot, and Aster’s mind certainly is one that’s filled to the brim with darkness inside.

 Joaquin Phoenix stars as Beau Wasserman, a mild-mannered man who suffers extreme paranoia. In the opening of the film, we see him speaking with a therapist – setting up the sense of unease he feels just from being around anything else inside his own world. All of this escalates the moment we see him heading back home, but also from the moment he gets news his mother has died and has to travel in order to get to the funeral. This is where a strange turn of events only begin playing upon his worst fears going forth, and thus a new sort of horror is born.

Aster certainly keeps up the ante in this surrealist comedy horror by going into more absurd concepts minute by minute. It’s easy enough to admire Aster for allowing his creativity to go completely unhinged as it allows for some of the most beautiful imagery that he’s ever put on the screen to be captured, but it also becomes his greatest hindrance. Given that this film has a mammoth three-hour running time, it can be felt as Aster tries to go for something more extreme than the last moment, and the end result is exhausting. Sadly, this seems to be the case as Aster’s set pieces become more elaborate over the course of the movie, and as it goes on, it ends up becoming less interesting.

That’s not to say it’s all bad, because most of this works especially well with Joaquin Phoenix at the center. He’s giving the film his all, really doing his best to sell you in on a character whose fears can manifest themselves in varying manners but also in how the film boxes you into his point of view. Aster excels in capturing that sense of paranoia, because it’s often difficult to see anyone else to trust when you’re only made to see the worst in everything around yourself. Given the sprawling nature of the material, it’s clear Phoenix is giving the film his all, and it’s arguably one of his best performances in quite some time.

You can easily call Beau Is Afraid a self-indulgent exercise – because it’s a film that emphasizes Ari Aster’s best and worst tendencies behind the camera. Many stretches of the film are very beautiful, but others that opt for the more grotesque seem like they’re cancelling each other out. Still, it’s also made into a fun time because Aster knows that he’s bringing everything up to such absurd degrees. At times it may be one of the most anxiety-inducing exercises he’s brought to the screen, others it’s hard not to laugh at the absurdity. But given its length, you can still sense the moment where it fizzes out.

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