Film Review: BEAU IS AFRAID (2023): Ari Aster’s New Picture is Very Interesting but Misses the Mark For Greatness

Beau is Afraid Review

Beau is Afraid (2023) Film Review, a movie written and directed by Ari Aster and starring Joaquin Phoenix, Nathan Lane, Parker Posey, Amy Ryan, Hayley Squires, Michael Gandolfini, Zoe Lister-Jones, Richard Kind, Patti LuPone, Armen Nahapetian, Kylie Rogers, Denis Menochet, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Julia Antonelli, Theodore Pellerin, Joe Cobden, Bradley Fisher and Ryan S. Hill.

Ari Aster has a twisted, deranged sense of humor. But, he’s a genius. His work could sometimes feel pretentious but he’s still a genius. Midsommar proved that fact. Most horror movie audiences definitely respect him. Only a true master of his craft could even attempt a deep movie like Beau is Afraid. Let’s start by saying the first hour and a half of the new three-hour picture is among the best of Aster’s feature film work to date. Then, the movie goes off the rails in a million different directions and ends with a resounding thud. Still, Joaquin Phoenix delivers a performance that is certainly in his top-five all time roles. It’s a challenge for an actor (even one of Phoenix’s caliber) to play an average Joe successfully. You will not see the actor himself in this performance but, rather, the pitiful character (Beau of the film’s title) that he plays instead. That’s no small feat.

This film opens with some of the most terrifying sequences since Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. As the movie begins, Beau is discussing his life (a non-glamorous one to say the least) with his therapist (the fantastic Stephen McKinley Henderson) and he is about to get on a plane to visit his mother. Beau lives in a city that looks like an urban wasteland of the future where everybody is either mentally unbalanced, poor or a criminal. Beau takes medication and he needs to pair it with water or face potential death. In one particular sequence, his water has been turned off in his building. He runs to a convenience store to get a bottle of water but his credit card is declined and he barely has enough cash to cover it. He steals some pennies that were left on the counter to pay his bill. In another wild scene, some offbeat locals all run into Beau’s building and go to his apartment. Did I mention that Beau doesn’t play loud music but gets notes from someone demanding that he lower his music?

Beau misses his plane and is unable to get to his mother. More frightening plot development occurs as he calls his mom’s phone only to have it answered by a UPS driver who claims he’s standing over a dead female body with no head. Could it be Beau’s mom? These scenes are the best of the best and set the stage for more great scenes as Beau gets severely injured after running out naked on to the street. In order to recover from his wounds, Beau goes to live temporarily with a couple who plan to take Beau to pay his respects to his mother. This couple, Roger and Grace, is played to perfection by Nathan Lane and Amy Ryan.

The movie creeps under one’s skin from the start and continues to do so when the audience meets Roger and Grace’s young daughter, Toni (Kylie Rogers). She’s an odd girl who seemingly has a grudge against Beau since he is being put up in Toni’s girlish bedroom. Toni threatens Beau several times but her bark could be worse than her bite. Maybe. That’s until Toni drinks paint, and the plot gets super heavy as the movie goes off track and never recovers when the film takes us to a different realm where Beau meets other people, some of whom have been abandoned by their parents while their parents were still alive.

There are intriguing plot developments which take us back in time as Beau (played as a young man by the very capable Armen Nahapetian) and Elaine (Julia Antonelli in a star-making supporting turn) start to get to know one another. Elaine makes conversation that includes the topic of whether or not Beau thinks his mother is the “c-word.” Zoe Lister-Jones portrays Beau’s mother here in these scenes and Lister-Jones adds another fascinating performance to her already distinguished series of recent roles.

It’s also great to see Parker Posey (the one-time indie movie “queen”) on screen again as an older but still very good-looking Elaine. I’d be lying if I told you the scenes with her make much sense in the grand scheme of things but they do add layers to Beau that need to be there for the ending scenes of the picture to function. In a sex scene that is raw and humorous, Beau gets to have sexual relations and although it’s interesting to see him have fun, the use of a Mariah Carey tune in the background sort of makes a mockery out of the proceedings.

It all boils down to a court-type scene which is superbly acted by Richard Kind as the sort of lawyer one may have seen in the world of the old Albert Brooks film, Defending Your Life. Beau is Afraid is an existential movie about a character facing a dilemma that is seriously deep-seated especially in terms of his relationship with his mom. The always terrific Patti LuPone gets into the mix also playing Beau’s mom as well. This film is ambitious beyond a reasonable doubt but winds up a bit shallow at the end because of the lack of satisfying plot developments regarding Beau’s life.

Beau also gets to age on screen in the movie as the picture presents a lot of heavy-handed symbolism that isn’t always successful. When his mom locks him in the attic, Beau sees an image that is very disturbing and, of course, since this is an Ari Aster movie, nobody will be surprised. To say more would ruin this revelation.

One hilarious scene shows that Beau gave his mother the same soundtrack to For the Boys two years in a row. The fact that nobody probably remembers that Bette Midler film is irrelevant but the sequence is incredibly funny nevertheless. It’s a welcome breath of comic relief in a solemn and intense picture.

Phoenix sinks his teeth into his role and makes the character work. The audience will feel some sort of odd sympathy for Beau. He’s overweight and not very attractive, but the audience could feel like Beau is a victim of his circumstances and deserved a better life in some respects despite his flaws.

Beau is Afraid is a very complex film. It may require multiple viewings to put all the pieces of the puzzle together. As the very ambiguous movie that it is, it leaves many unanswered questions that could be OK in a film that is much shorter. But, in a three-hour picture like this one, we need even more depth and much more resolve regarding the final outcome of the events that transpire. It’s a bleak outlook for Beau, to be sure, but Aster could have given us more explanation. Maybe he doesn’t want to and that’s his right as a film-making genius. Even though this is not a great film, let’s not deny Aster’s artistic integrity. He’s a director to watch and will one day have another film as perfect as 2019’s Midsommar which still remains his best film to date.

Rating: 6.5/10

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