by Robert Bouffard, Editor
It’s quite a daunting task to write anything cohesive about Beau Is Afraid, because it’s not a particularly cohesive movie. That’s not a knock on it, though. Director Ari Aster got the rare chance to make a three-hour, darkly and dryly comedic, pseudo-epic that may or may not take place in the main character’s mind, and he went all out. After his critical hits in the horror genre — Hereditary and Midsommar — Aster shirks any typical genre conventions (and it’s not a stretch to say he shirks storytelling conventions, too) with Beau. It’s absurd, surreal, and psychological like his previous features, but it’s also impossible to neatly describe.
Beau Is Afraid’s elusiveness is both its biggest strength and its biggest weakness. It’s always a good thing when a director of Aster’s caliber gets to go buck wild with one of their films. This one is about the main character, the titular Beau (Joaquin Phoenix), going to visit his mother. But his anxiety makes it a much more difficult endeavor than he’d like it to be. Aster’s larger budget — the $35 million is more than three times as big as each of his past films — brings the story to some wildly absurd places that could only be achieved, or even imagined, with the kind of freedom he’s allowed here. And on that level, it’s easy to appreciate Beau.
On another level, though, it’s often difficult to get on Aster’s wavelength. It’s not to say that the audience needs to be in the know for each and every little symbol, or piece of production design, sound design, or dialogue (because there’s lots to dissect here); rather, it sometimes feels like the film’s chaotic nature comes as a result of Aster not fully knowing what he wants to say, or that its main themes are actually unresolved in his own life. It’s in the text of the film that Beau has a complicated at best relationship with his mother, so you can surmise that something similar can be said about Aster, the film’s sole writer and director. But that unresolved feeling translates pretty directly into the film. Instead of something conclusive to say, Aster settles for a feeling.
Giving your film a distinct feeling or vibe is a good thing! But when that vibe comes across as uncertain from the director themself, you feel like you’re on shaky ground as an audience member. Even still, the first 90 minutes or so of this, again, three-hour epic encapsulate an almost assured shakiness. When Beau wakes up the morning he’s supposed to leave to fly to his mother, he’s accidentally slept in, and then his keys are stolen, and he’s lead on a downward spiral of what basically amounts to anarchy. The film presents it all as a literal, heightened reality, but I’m still not convinced that’s the case. And seeing the slippery slope of anxiety literalized does portray what this sort of panicky anxiety can feel like.
Furthermore, the film’s distinct sections elevate Beau’s spiral. We get a fairly straightforward (yet no less anarchic) opening in which Beau’s apartment is taken over by a swath of vagrants — clothed or otherwise. Then there’s a section in Nathan Lane and Amy Ryan’s house (which happens to be my favorite), followed by a fantastical stretch in the forest, and then a few more which I won’t spoil. Aster hides so much within each of these sections, and it’s only logical to assume he’s hidden lots of messages and ideas, big and small, within the visual minutia; so the film warrants a rewatch if all that grabs your attention. But there’s still enough on the surface that’s engaging, at least to a certain degree.
Oddly, as the film gets more specific in its themes, it loses some of its original charm, hence the idea that Aster doesn’t quite know what he wants to say, or what feeling he wants to get across, because it’s still not settled within himself, literally or artistically. Phoenix is great in one of the more heightened roles of his career, but channeling the confounded Michael Stuhlbarg in A Serious Man only goes so far when your director is a bit lost in their communication. You can revel in the atmosphere and elevated, wacky humor of Phoenix, Lane, and Ryan’s performances, but after an odyssey within the grand odyssey of the film, Beau kind of runs out of juice, narratively and atmospherically.
Aster is known, among other things, for his distinct visual, cinematographic flairs. There is certainly some of that in Beau (shots of an attic come to mind, and are reminiscent of some of the more iconic shots in his previous features), but it’s what he fills the frame with that’s more intriguing, than the way he moves it. Anything and everything from regular apartments, to stage plays, to animated sequences find their way into the film, and that’s not even to mention some of the more shocking props, characters, and wardrobe choices. It’s par for the course for an Aster movie, and it’s still remarkable to me that such an unassuming-seeming guy such as him has all of this and more inside his brain.
Realistically, Aster announced himself with his first feature, Hereditary, which is one of the best horror movies of this century. But after Midsommar, and certainly now Beau Is Afraid, it’s clear that Aster is one of the most exciting directors out there. Even when his movies don’t completely work, and feel like they’re just scratching the surface of some deep, personal pain, you can’t help but feel at least a little awed that this was produced and brought together cohesively. Aster has a lot to say, and I’m happy that he’s saying it in unique ways. 20 or 30 years from now, we could be looking at him as an eclectic visionary who is impossible to pin down to a specific genre (this is much more of a comedy than a horror movie) or style.
So for something as arbitrary as giving a movie a score out of 10, it’s difficult to do in this case. Beau Is Afraid has a lot of compelling ideas, and a singular structure. And you have to respect Aster putting everything out there the way he does. When some of it feels still undercooked, or not fully realized, that’s just a side effect of an auteur taking a big swing. And that’s the kind of side effect I don’t mind experiencing.
Score: 7/10
Beau is Afraid is currently playing in theaters
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