Pitched between hysterical mayhem and an eerie calm, Beau Is Afraid makes Get Out look like The Wiggles.
This almost three hour epic is trippy indeed, with all the logic of a fever dream.Although written and directed by Ari Aster it’s like a Kafka compendium created by Paul Thomas Anderson, with a soupcon of David Lynch.
The titular Beau Wassermann, portrayed by the ever brilliant Joaquin Phoenix, is an anxiety-ridden middle aged man with mother issues. It’s hardly surprising, given his mom Mona (Patti Lu Pone) is hateful, highly toxic, reminding me of Woody Allen ‘s imaginary play, ‘The Castrating Zionist’. She’s horrendous, one of the most unpleasant Jewish moms in cinematic history.
Just like the story of Job, Beau has to navigate a series of hellish scenarios, and survive them with his faith intact. And life throws pretty much everything at him: there’s a naked man running around stabbing people, screaming hordes, and vehicles crashing everywhere. We’re in peak Dystopia.
This he does until he runs into a bizarre troupe of players dealing in immersive theatre in a forest..It’s here that the plot twists again, from grim to sort of Grimm tale.
Okay, the film is pretty unwieldy and a bit indulgent, but I really liked it. Beau elicits tremendous sympathy: you just want to cuddle him and make him some hot chocolate with a little whisky. It’s a little too long, and distended like part of Beau’s anatomy, but there’s a lot to enjoy, much humour amid the horror, and Phoenix, Lu Pone and co-stars Nathan Lane, Amy Ryan and Parker Posey are all excellent.
It’s not for everyone, and many have found it stretching their patience to breaking point, but go with it, and its lunacy, and it’s a wild, metaphysical ride.
Available to stream and download online.
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