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Beau is Afraid
The director of Hereditary and Midsommar takes a big swing and a miss with 2023's Beau is Afraid, an overlong, and pretentious character study/horror/drama/black comedy that is so all over the place and so unsure of exactly it wants to say or I didn't know what it was trying to say, that this reviewer has to classify the film with a handful of films that I just didn't understand and I had mentally checked out less than two thirds of the way through the film.
Beau is a mild-mannered bundle of neuroses and anxieties who keeps his therapist on his toes thanks to long-standing issues Beau has with his mother. Beau is about to take a flight out of town to see his mother but a bizarre set of circumstances keep Beau from making his flight and he learns that his mother has died shortly afterwards, news that sends Beau on a completely illogical and one-of-a-kind emotional journey to get back home and resolve the aforementioned mentions with his mother.
Director and screenwriter Ari Aster has crafted a tale that divides itself up into chapters, that starts out quite interestingly, but gets less and less so as this bizarre story progresses. The opening chapter finds Beau getting kept out of his apartment while the odd characters from his neighborhood manage to get in and party in his home while locking him out. It's not long before they are after him and in an attempt to escape gets hit by a truck driven by a couple who turn out to be a doctor and an important CEO who take Beau in, but keep him a virtual prisoner, leading Beau to escape to find a theatrical troupe where he is the audience and the leading character, which finally leads to Beau's long-awaited confrontation with the real demons that have been tormenting him.
Aster asks a lot of her audience in terms of patience because this story lays down an undeniably interesting canvas and continues to let the central character fight to get answers that everyone seems to be keeping from him purposely. The film reminded me of the Adam Sandler movie Punch Drunk Love with its relentless torture of the central character, providing so little mental solace, not to mention actual danger that this guy doesn't really incite or deserve. The film is filled with bizarre set pieces and situations that defy any kind of explanation. There's a scene where Beau gets into an overflowing bathtub that he didn't fill and looks up and sees a guy he doesn't clinging to the bathroom ceiling like Spiderman trying not to fall in the tub on top of Beau. This movie is jam-packed with "And then I woke up" scenes, but refuses to admit that's what they are. And they get more and more bizarre as the film goes on and the film does go on and on and on. There was no legitimizing this film's three-hour length. If you're going to make a three hour movie, something in the movie has to be rooted in some kind of realism and we get nothing here.
The role of Beau is an actor's dream and Oscar winner Joaquin Phoenix puts his heart and soul into this performance, it's just a shame that everything else in the film is working against him. The film features some incredible art direction, editing, visual effects, makeup, and music, but it's all for nothing because I just didn't understand what the hell was going on here.
The director of Hereditary and Midsommar takes a big swing and a miss with 2023's Beau is Afraid, an overlong, and pretentious character study/horror/drama/black comedy that is so all over the place and so unsure of exactly it wants to say or I didn't know what it was trying to say, that this reviewer has to classify the film with a handful of films that I just didn't understand and I had mentally checked out less than two thirds of the way through the film.
Beau is a mild-mannered bundle of neuroses and anxieties who keeps his therapist on his toes thanks to long-standing issues Beau has with his mother. Beau is about to take a flight out of town to see his mother but a bizarre set of circumstances keep Beau from making his flight and he learns that his mother has died shortly afterwards, news that sends Beau on a completely illogical and one-of-a-kind emotional journey to get back home and resolve the aforementioned mentions with his mother.
Director and screenwriter Ari Aster has crafted a tale that divides itself up into chapters, that starts out quite interestingly, but gets less and less so as this bizarre story progresses. The opening chapter finds Beau getting kept out of his apartment while the odd characters from his neighborhood manage to get in and party in his home while locking him out. It's not long before they are after him and in an attempt to escape gets hit by a truck driven by a couple who turn out to be a doctor and an important CEO who take Beau in, but keep him a virtual prisoner, leading Beau to escape to find a theatrical troupe where he is the audience and the leading character, which finally leads to Beau's long-awaited confrontation with the real demons that have been tormenting him.
Aster asks a lot of her audience in terms of patience because this story lays down an undeniably interesting canvas and continues to let the central character fight to get answers that everyone seems to be keeping from him purposely. The film reminded me of the Adam Sandler movie Punch Drunk Love with its relentless torture of the central character, providing so little mental solace, not to mention actual danger that this guy doesn't really incite or deserve. The film is filled with bizarre set pieces and situations that defy any kind of explanation. There's a scene where Beau gets into an overflowing bathtub that he didn't fill and looks up and sees a guy he doesn't clinging to the bathroom ceiling like Spiderman trying not to fall in the tub on top of Beau. This movie is jam-packed with "And then I woke up" scenes, but refuses to admit that's what they are. And they get more and more bizarre as the film goes on and the film does go on and on and on. There was no legitimizing this film's three-hour length. If you're going to make a three hour movie, something in the movie has to be rooted in some kind of realism and we get nothing here.
The role of Beau is an actor's dream and Oscar winner Joaquin Phoenix puts his heart and soul into this performance, it's just a shame that everything else in the film is working against him. The film features some incredible art direction, editing, visual effects, makeup, and music, but it's all for nothing because I just didn't understand what the hell was going on here.