Director: Ari Aster
Stars: Joaquin Phoenix, Patti Lupone, Amy Ryan, Nathan Lane
Be very afraid
I saw this film on a Saturday afternoon and needed a full 24 hours to properly digest and compute what I had just watched. If we were in any doubt that Ari Aster might have some deep rooted family issues with Hereditary and Midsommar then Beau Is Afraid fully confirms it.
This man clearly has a lot going on, I’d be fascinated to read his autobiography! Although Beau Is Afraid almost feels like a twisted version of one. It’s essentially like watching an anxiety-induced nightmare unfold over three hours. It’s exhausting but undeniably bold and exhilarating.
It also cements Ari Aster as one of the most exciting auteurs to come out of this century. Hereditary and Midsommar weren’t just flukes, this bloke is the real deal. Although Beau Is Afraid is by far the most polarising and divisive of the lot, I’m pretty sure that it’ll reach cult classic status.
Whilst Hereditary and Midsommar started off grounded in reality before evolving into something altogether more barmy, Beau Is Afraid is totally nuts from the off. It exists in some kind of surrealist universe where naked old men run wild on the street stabbing people and unspeakable horrors live in people’s attics. It’s wild but all presented as normal in the Beau universe, much like a dream.
The first half does a particularly brilliant job at building up the anxiety and tension. I don’t think I’ve felt so stressed since Darren Aronofsky’s Mother!
I don’t want to give away any of the plot but it basically unfolds like a totally deranged version of Alice In Wonderland. It sends the viewer on an utterly unhinged and maddening journey down the rabbit hole where anything could be lurking around the corner. At three hours long it feels incredibly self-indulgent but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t entertained and transfixed throughout. The ride is so unpredictably bonkers that I didn’t want it to end, and it basically feels like it never does.
I can completely understand why someone would not like this film. There was a couple in their eighties (at least) sitting on the front row and the granny shouted quite loudly to her husband “When does this finish?” About halfway through. Unbelievably they almost made it to the end but decided to leave when possibly the most WTF moment of all time popped up on screen… You’ll know when you see it.
For me though, this is what cinema is all about. Beau Is Afraid breaks through the barriers of convention and becomes something else entirely, transforming into a piece of art. It either speaks to you or it doesn’t but it spoke to my little disturbed soul.
The film also manages to do that rare thing of being funny and horrifying at the same time. There’s a lot of very bizarre and twisted humour in this, much like a David Lynch film where you don’t know whether to laugh or be disturbed or both. It also put me in mind of another excellent filmmaker called Alan Resnick who’s surreal short films are just as traumatising as this one (check out Unedited Footage of a Bear and This House Has People In It if you want your evenings pleasantly ruined).
I’ve probably rambled on too much here (much like the film itself) but the short of it is I loved it. It’s very rare to find a film that’s so personal and absurd on such a large scale like this and with a massive budget. I know it’s flopping hard at the box office but I’m so thankful for A24 for giving Ari the money to do whatever the hell he wanted because this feels like something special. When it was over and I stepped out into the streets of Nottingham, the world seemed somehow darker and more dangerous than before. I felt like I’d just travelled through the mind of a madman for three hours and had no idea how to react.
Beau might be afraid but is he as confused and haunted as I am after watching this fever dream unfold? Can’t wait to put myself through it all again.
Movies Plus Madness 