‘Beau Is Afraid’ Review: Joaquin Phoenix Plays a Simpering Man-Child in Ari Aster’s Runaway Arrested-Development Epic

Poor Beau. Nearly half a century on Earth, and hes never really lived. Sure, he was born that much director Ari Aster depicts from Beaus point of view at the outset of his wildly self-indulgent and frequently surreal third feature, Beau Is Afraid, lingering long enough to witness the infants umbilical cord being snipped but what has Beau done with his life since then? Can it be said that he ever really developed an identity apart from his successful single mom, Mona Wasserman, who haunts the film for the better part of three hours before finally revealing herself?

Not since Psycho has an off-screen mother loomed so large over a films protagonist, played here by Joaquin Phoenix, cowering from the world. The Hitchcock comparison could be misleading, since Aster (who helmed indie studio A24s two most successful horror movies, Hereditary and Midsommar) makes a surprising tonal shift away from traditional nightmare material for this deranged road trip, which follows Beau cross-country and through several substitute families to face his intimidating Jewish mom.

Asters signature slow-building sense of dread pervades a film that can be outrageously violent, although the fear advertised by its title is more satirical than scary, as the cult-fave filmmaker pokes fun at a hapless man-child crippled by guilt, shame and countless other neuroses. Hes persecuted by agoraphobia and fear of spiders, for starters, plus theres that genetic condition (swollen testicles, nearly subliminal here, but soon to flood the internet in animated GIF form) thats kept him a virgin all these years.

Watching the movies transparently Freudian opening scene, its kind of a shame that Irritu beat the director to it, since Bardo began with a newborn so repelled by the world that the obstetricians actually forced him back in the womb. That sight gag wouldve suited Beau better. Instead, after showing Beaus delivery, Aster skips forward four dozen years to find the mamas boy in psychoanalysis, where character actor Stephen McKinley Henderson makes as convivial a therapist as one could hope to confide in.

Beau has enormous trouble managing his anxiety, which is understandable, since Aster depicts his terrifying inner-city neighborhood as a Hieronymus Bosch-like hellscape, the way Swedish director Roy Andersson might have filmed it: Everyone looks threatening, from the kids with firearms to the face-tattooed creep who chases Beau to his front door. The simple act of crossing the street becomes an almost superhuman challenge, and in the time it takes to do so, all the freaks Beau tried to avoid outside march zombielike up to his apartment, where they proceed to tear the place apart.

Had the day gone as planned, Beau would be on a plane to Florida to see his mother. (Thats Broadway legend Patti LuPones voice we hear on the other end of the phone.) But Beau has a way of self-sabotaging, which becomes a running joke in a movie that inflicts the trials of Job upon a character who starts out from a far less stable place. Beau has no children or fortune, so the setbacks dont resemble a test of faith so much as the whims of some cruel god in this case, the director punishing his creation for our amusement.

Theres no denying Charlie Kaufmans influence on Asters worldview, crossed with the navel-spelunking cynicism of underground comic artists. But longtime fans will recognize the same long-standing obsessions that Asters been picking at since his AFI thesis film, The Strange Thing About the Johnsons, a transgressive, incestuous quasi-Cosby sitcom sendup.

Horror and comedy are flip sides of the same coin, confronting taboos en route to catharsis, and detail-oriented Aster seems uniquely wired to meld the two disciplines. From Grace and Roger (Amy Ryan and Nathan Lane), the disconcertingly cheery couple who adopt Beau after hitting him with their truck, to the motley commune of so-called Orphans of the Forest who rescue him on the run, Asters ideas can be quite funny, as he tiptoes the line between relatable and random.

Still, while Beau is easily lulled into a false sense of comfort, the audience cant ignore the pervasive undercurrent of menace. Its not just that Beau isnt safe; hes in active danger at nearly all times, as people around him behave in unpredictable ways like the nervous cop who mistakes him for a serial killer or the PTSD-addled ex-soldier (Denis Mnochet) who eyes Beau as if hed like to rip him limb from limb. That can be entertaining for a while, and there will surely be a small contingent who embrace this as their new favorite movie (until A24s next bizart-house offering comes along), but three hours doesnt feel at all reasonable for such an uneven collection of sketches.

Strategically parked about halfway through is a terrific stop-motion fantasy sequence, overseen by Cristobal Leon and Joaquin Cocina (The Wolf House), which blossoms out of an immersive stage play Beau sits down to watch his newfound forest family perform. The show speaks directly to him, suggesting a more fulfilling course that his life could take. Like so much of Beau Is Afraid, this archetypal digression boils down to a punchline. But it also has the magical effect of making the film seem so much more epic than it is, clearing the way for the last (and least successful) hour.

The home stretch, as we might call it (and this is a spoiler, so skip this paragraph until youve seen the film), amounts to a frustrating, fool-me-twice twist upon a twist. Much earlier, as Beau is scrambling to make up for his missed flight, he learns that a falling chandelier smashed his mothers head. The family lawyer (Richard Kind) insists he get home right away for the funeral, but absurd obstacles have a way of impeding his trip, leaving no room for grief. When Beau arrives, instead of finally being free of his mother, hes obliged to relive every trauma she ever inflicted upon him.

It takes an awfully long time for Aster to reveal the source of the mommy issues that we detect but cant possibly comprehend from the get-go. Deprived of these flashbacks (in which the great Zoe Lister-Jones plays Mona), what are we to assume Beau wants from life? Phoenix plays the character as a slump-shouldered and spineless loser, and though one could hardly hope for a more committed performance, the casting feels the most predictable in an ensemble of unconventional choices. Its a role that might have more aptly gone to a comedian, la Adam Sandler in Punch Drunk Love or Jim Carrey in The Truman Show.

Early on, Aster introduces a childhood sweetheart named Pearl for whom Beau has been saving himself all this time, so audiences anticipate or at least hope to see a reunion with her later. Its a treat when erstwhile indie princess Parker Posey eventually shows up in the role, though Aster substitutes sadism for romance in their long-awaited meet-up, abusing both characters to the strains of Mariah Careys Always Be My Baby.

And then theres the Patti LuPone version of Mona, who manages to punish Beau from beyond the grave for all the ways hes blamed her. Ideas teased throughout, like a bath-time dream and some memory involving an attic, are meant to pay off here, but instead the film seems to implode in on itself. By this point, Beaus anxieties have so overwhelmed reality that Asters sick stunt of a last scene falls flat, set in a badly rendered arena where all the traumas Beau has endured over his life are reframed from Monas point of view.

In Beau Is Afraid, Aster tracks his titular antihero from birth to death, from psychoanalysis to this cheeky subversion of Freud, where the child assumes responsibility for his parents trauma, rather than the other way around. But hes crammed so many ideas into this unwieldy container, the film capsizes. In retrospect, Hereditary did too, but we forgave it because its finale was frightening, at least. Here, wrapping with an anticlimax seems to be Asters idea of a joke.