Beau is Afraid

MOVIE #1,172 •🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿• 10.02.23 50 MOVIES IN 32 DAYS! I think this movie is an excellent exercise in being able to accept a piece of art as both an indulgent, sloppy mess and uncompromising masterpiece: these things feel part and parcel in this case. All of the elements, and especially the most insane scenes/choices, feel crucial to the greater point: the unknowable and weird bigness inherent in the mystery of the child-mother relationship. On the one hand, the themes are bludgeoning you to the death, but there also seems to be a layered puzzle lurking in the background.

It feels almost too obvious to say this is begging you to pick through the background, to find clues hidden in the various threads/settings, either to figure out 'what's really going on' or to expand on the motifs and messaging (a single glance at Reddit will show you comment threads within comments threads that seem to go on forever). This level of attention to detail, regardless of how much is window dressing and/or dead ends, is remarkably admirable and clearly part of Ari Aster's intentions (imo! I can totally see how this could be off-putting/pretentious as well). I would go as far to say that I wish ALL movies were made with this much care and love and psychotic precision (even if the latter is, in part, something of a mirage).

But you know what? Despite it screaming at you to examine it, to discuss it endlessly, I found it to be genuinely entertaining and funny throughout. Some lines of dialogues and abrupt moments/cuts almost come off like non-sequiturs or Tim and Eric level absurdism. So in this sense, there seems like a real danger/futility in over-analyzing it. I wouldn't go as far as saying it's a bait and switch — I love digging into a film with repeat viewings — but it also seems like one could (and maybe should) try submitting to the craziness and just enjoy the ride.

LISTEN TO AN IMPROMPTU PODCAST I MADE DRIVING HOME FROM SEEING THIS IN THE THEATER HERE.

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CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ MOVIE #1,171 - (YOU ARE HERE) - MOVIE #1,173 ⫸

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Beau Is Afraid is a 2023 American surrealist tragicomedy horror film written, directed, and co-produced by Ari Aster. The film stars Joaquin Phoenix as the title character, Beau Wassermann, and also includes a supporting ensemble cast consisting of Patti LuPone, Nathan Lane, Amy Ryan, Kylie Rogers, Parker Posey, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Hayley Squires, Michael Gandolfini, Zoe Lister-Jones, Armen Nahapetian, and Richard Kind. Its plot follows the mild-mannered but paranoia-ridden Beau as he embarks on a surreal odyssey to get home to attend his mother's funeral, realizing his greatest fears along the way. It was released on April 1, 2023.