Is Ari Aster okay? How about Joaquin Phoenix? After watching Beau is Afraid (2023), one has to imagine they are not—but perhaps we have their anxiety to thank for this weird, macabre, darkly funny, bleak-as-hell film.
Beau Wassermann (Phoenix) is a quivering trainwreck of a guy. The only child of an over-bearing, successful businesswoman (Patti Lupone), Beau is plagued by intense, debilitating anxiety, which he’s struggling to manage with the help of a kindly psychiatrist (Stephen McKinley Henderson). One thing Beau is anxious about is an upcoming trip to visit his mother. A series of wildly improbable mishaps conspire to make him miss his flight, which only triggers his nervous condition further when he has to call mom and deliver the bad news. Disappointing his mother is just the beginning of the epic, tragically madcap, Job-like struggle Beau is about to endure, as he attempts to make it home and make things right—something the universe just absolutely refuses to allow.
How can I put this? Beau is Afraid is a lot. I mean, a lot a lot. Running three hours, it’s a hyper-amped, awkward, tense, nerve-wracking, frantic, uncompromising journey. But as difficult as it is to watch, it’s also impossible to avert your gaze. Aster has shown, in films like Midsommar, his brilliance at conjuring potent, horror-tinged atmosphere. Here, he channels that skill into absurdist, surreal, horror-tinged dark comedy that is by turns emotionally bludgeoning and laugh-out-loud funny. The technique is ingenious: Beau is Afraid heightens every moment of Beau’s nervous existence by treating it as if it is his worst-nightmare hallucination of what’s actually happening. Walking down a busy, threatening city street can be tense for the best of us; Beau literally sees those threats as streaking, knife-wielding maniacs and wild, violent strangulations. Are we witnessing the deranged inner workings of a deeply anxious man, or is this Aster’s literalized-metaphor venting session about surviving day-to-day life in a world growing crazier by the minute? Either, both, it doesn’t matter: he leans into his strategy relentlessly, and the results are as deeply disturbing as they are perversely funny.
And holy shit, is Phoenix ever all-in on this one. He plays Beau in a state of heightened, raw stress, and it may be one of the most intense sustained performances I’ve ever seen. His ceaseless, traumatic anxiety is exacerbated by brilliant supporting turns from Henderson, Lupone, Nathan Lane, Zoe Lister-Jones, Parker Posey, Kylie Rogers, Amy Ryan, and a deftly stealthed-in Bill Hader, among others. Unfortunately, Aster doesn’t rein in his excessive instincts—which, while absolutely appropriate thematically to this project, makes for a draggy, exhausting middle stretch. And the experiment resolves in an explosive door-slam moment that doesn’t entirely pay off the extended build-up. Then again, those choices seem to be part of Aster’s merciless point, and given how memorable it turned out, it’s hard to blame him for milking the concept for all that it’s worth. Love it or hate it (for me it’s both, but more of the former), the unforgettable results are just jaw-dropping.
Joaquin Phoenix in Beau is Afraid
