THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
I guess some have wake-up calls when it can be too late for a change, which is a statement I didn’t think I’d say had I not watched Beau is Afraid.
PLOT
Formerly named Disappointment Blvd., the film follows Beau Wasserman, son of wealthy businesswoman Mona, whose relationship with her has been strained since childhood. He grew up without a father, claimed from Mona he died from a heart murmur the night he was conceived. He also has dreams of having an identical dream and remembers meeting a girl named Elaine on a cruise trip, promising to remain virgins until they meet again. In the story’s present, an adult Beau lives in a crime ridden city and suffers from anxiety. He plans to visit Mona on the anniversary of his dad’s death, but plans are halted when his keys and luggage are taken, making him incapable of going until he can find a solution. When he gets locked out of his apartment, deranged homeless people crash for the night. When he gets back inside, the place in vandalized and one is found dead due to a poisonous spider bite. When Beau tries calling his mom again, a delivery driver answers only to tell him he has found her dead from a house accident. Before he plans going home for her now inevitable funeral, he takes a bath only to find one of the intruders still there, hanging above the ceiling trying to avoid the same spider. When it bites him, he falls into the bath, scaring Beau to the point he runs out of his apartment. He then tries to call an officer for help, but the latter mistakes him to be deranged and holds him at gunpoint. When he tries running away, he accidentally gets ran over by a food truck and stabbed by a homeless serial killer. Beau would wake up two days later and find himself in the home of Grace, the woman who ran him over. She chooses to take care of him with the open assist of her husband Roger who already takes care of another man named Jeeves (Denis Menochet), an unstable veteran who knew their son who was killed in action. The only one who isn’t comfortable with his presence is their teenage daughter Toni who has to put up with him sleeping in her bedroom rather than the one that belongs to her late brother. Grace & Roger want him to recover, but Beau insists on leaving as soon as possible due to his mother’s lawyer Dr Cohen (Richard Kind) insisting him to come home as soon as possible as her last wish was to not be buried until he is present. On the day he plans to leave, Toni takes her resentment too far by trying to force him to drink a can of paint, until she commits suicide by drinking it herself. When Grace walks in on the incident, she blames Beau for it and has Jeeves chase him into the woods. There, he encounters a group of traveling theater actors and is invited to a rehearsal. When watching it, he imagines himself as the play’s protagonist. In the middle of it, he encounters someone who implies his dad is still alive before Jeeves catches up and continues pursuing him, slaughtering multiple actors in the process. With no other choice, he reaches his mom’s home on foot only to discover he missed the funeral. After he takes a long rest, he reunites with Elaine who was late for the service as well. They reconnect when having sex, living up to their childhood promise, only for her Elaine to die mid orgasm, causing her body to be mid stiff. After that happens, Mona returns to reveal she faked her death and allowed her nanny to sacrifice herself to bring Beau home, while also admitting to have been spying on him with the assist of his own therapist Jeremy (Stephen Henderson). She then guilt trips him for not loving him enough, which encourages him to speak up and know the truth of his dad. She directs him to the attic in which he goes up to discover his twin brother is real and has been there all along, but also finds his dad to be in the form of a penis shaped monster. At that moment, Jeeves attacks again only for him to be killed in the process by the same monster. The whole revelation has Beau beg for forgiveness, but Mona further berates him and confesses to hate him. The response causes him to briefly strangle her until she collapses. In shock, he leaves via motorboat until finding himself in a crowded arena, put on trial for his perceived slights against his mom. He has a lawyer defend him until being thrown to his death. Finding himself glued to the boat, he accepts his fate and dies when the boat explodes, causing him to drown. The film ends with the crowd leaving the arena as Mona sobs for her loss.
THOUGHTS
I knew I was in for a ride since I felt that Ari Aster's previous directorial credit Midsommar was quite psychedelic. From that experience alone, I was not surprised on how he topped that feeling with this film alone because with each half hour, I kept asking myself 'What the fuck?' because I couldn't believe each direction that was taken. If you watched this while high, you would likely be laughing your ass off the way the Golden Globes acknowledged this as a comedy. If you didn't and went in accepting it as a drama, you probably still had a chuckle because either way, this was a story quite shocking to un-fathom. I wouldn't blame you either way because it ain't every day you see a penis monster onscreen or see an over the top crime ridden neighborhood. I'm able to get through this entire 3 hour feature thanks to what has the most fascinating performance from Joaquin Phoenix. He really kept it together in wanting us to root for Beau because it's so unreal to see how miserable he is. You want to wish nothing that happens is real besides the play, but there is too much proof to confirm it is, which is where we feel bad for him from start to finish. It's through his catastrophic journey where we get to an understanding that this picture was that we can overcome our fears as long as we have the right guidance along the way as we take action. Beau was someone that never got that because Patti LuPone made Mona come off quite overbearing to say the least. At first you wouldn't blame her since it again is not easy to talk about a penis monster, but then she makes a pointless decision on leaving the twin in the attic. Overall, she chose to make him so codependent to the point where he was afraid of life overall, which included intimacy. She wants to be proud of her child but her methods made it inevitable in remaining disappointed in him. Even if she were to get what she wanted out of him, she would still hate it would take her push to make a man out of him. No matter how much you might think she proved her point, you wish she didn't have to take certain lengths. You still want to be happy for Beau somehow because he needs confidence somehow. You want to be relieved he got it when reuniting with Elaine, but you still wish there were no circumstances/consequences that came from it. He accepts his fate in the end which makes the whole finale sad as expected because despite picking up that his mother is still at fault, he wishes he found confidence sooner by pushing himself. When his fate is sealed, you just want to wish he's in a better place and when hearing Mona mourn for her loss, even she wished she did better. Since those two have the quite the dynamic, I'm surprised seeing other characters take part of the ride. You want to admire Amy Ryan & Nathan Lane being very caregiving figures as Grace & Roger which is a rightful feeling since the former accidentally ran him over but also because they're doing what they couldn't do what they couldn't do when it came to their son. They're trying to save him the way they take care of Jeeves, but the good intentions of course pushed away their remaining child that was openly broken. Kylie Rogers was straight up heartbreaking to watch as Toni because she felt ignored and was the only one to openly accept something was wrong. She knew her parents were trying so hard to fill such a void they didn't really care how she felt, thus making her do what was absolutely unnecessary. Had she been listened to just once, she would've not had to take her life. And since Grace sent Jeeves after Beau for mistaking him responsible, I'm not sure how she or her husband will recover from this moment of downfall. To wrap up, Beau is Afraid will go down as one of the damnedest of films because of its unpredictable atmosphere. If psychedelic adventures are your preference, check this out whenever.
If you or someone you know is struggling with depression or thoughts of suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.
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