Beau Is Afraid: Film Review
I had heard horror stories about Beau Is Afraid and fully braced myself for enduring a three-hour film I hated. Thankfully, Ari Aster‘s movie isn’t quite as weird as I expected and I enjoyed the majority of it.
Joaquin Phoenix stars as Beau Wasserman, who is a paranoid, nervous wreck. Following the sudden death of his mother Mona (Patti LuPone), Beau goes on an epic and fantastical journey to return home for her funeral.
I have a low tolerance for weird so I’m impressed by how far I got through the movie before it became too much for me. The film can be divided into five segments (if you’re going by location) and I genuinely really liked the opening chapter. During the first 45 minutes, which were fantastic, I felt positive that this wasn’t going to be so bad. The sound design was amazing and I was blown away by the mise-en-scène of Beau’s street (the dodgiest street ever) and how the camera moved around all the crazy characters.
That first sequence was odd and anxiety-fuelled but it was clear Beau was tripping on his meds so you could make logical sense of the weirdness. It was not so easy going forward. I still liked the second segment because Amy Ryan and Nathan Lane were both excellent, but it went on too long and I couldn’t really make out why things were happening. I didn’t care for the outdoor theatre segment, even though it had a beautiful sequence where Beau walks through animated storybook-like landscapes.
The fourth segment, well… that’s where things get truly insane. I still liked parts of it (the WTF sex scene is a highlight) but it went over my threshold for weirdness. Also, there were a couple of places it could have ended and it just kept on going. I would have been happier if it ended after this one because I disliked the final segment entirely and was so done with the film.
How you respond to this feature will really depend on your taste for the surreal and fantastical as well as your sense of humour. I laughed a fair bit, mostly because of how absurd it was, but some people found it much funnier than I did – they must have a darker sense of humour.
I have to hand it to Aster – Beau Is Afraid is a technical achievement (particularly the opening) and the work of a director with a singular, distinctive vision. He was unafraid of going too weird or taking Beau’s mommy issues too far but he didn’t know when to stop. The film was overstuffed and way too long and therefore quite self-indulgent. It felt like he had so many ideas and decided to throw them all in rather than refining them or paring them back for the audience’s sake.
But, in fairness, I didn’t think about the runtime that often and I only felt it properly in the final segment, because I didn’t like it. Plus, Phoenix’s committed performance really keeps you going and holds it all together. Beau is a mild-mannered anxiety-ridden man who gets put through the wringer over the course of a few very bad days.
Beau Is Afraid is a challenging watch that will leave you processing what you just witnessed long after the credits roll.
In cinemas from Friday 19th May