Don’t Be Afraid… Joaquin Phoenix Goes Extreme to Bring an Anxiety Dream to the Screen
Writer-Director Ari Aster’s hotly anticipated 3rd feature might be his weirdest yet. Part absurdist nightmare, part black comedy, and all cinema, we dive into the three-hour odyssey of anxiety - and giant private parts - that is Beau is Afraid.
good.film
2 years ago
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What’s Beau is Afraid about?
On paper? A bloke going to visit his mother. But Beau’s deep seated anxiety makes a simple journey feel perilous and terrifying. After Beau misses his flight, we’re with him on the bizarre journey home that sees him chased, run over, stabbed, turned into a paper cartoon and lose his virginity.
What’s Beau is Afraid’s key social insight?
Ari Aster uses a surrealist set of events to explore the extreme effect that abusive parenting, control & coercion can have. Through creative animation, sound and other techniques, we experience the long shadows that childhood domestic abuse have cast on Beau’s adult self. As an on-screen depiction of a highly anxious state, it’s one of the best we’ve ever seen. By putting the audience squarely in an anxiety sufferer’s shoes, those who have never experienced anxiety can empathise with this ‘invisible’ condition.
What social causes does Beau is Afraid explore?
Mental Health. Domestic & Family Violence.
Discover the other top movies & TV shows that explore these themes, and more, at good.film.
THUD-THUD. THUD-THUD. THUD-THUD.
On a darkened screen, that’s the sound that you hear first. A thumping heartbeat - the sound we associate most with fear. Then: pink swirls. Some faint screams. A piercing shaft of light. Hands, fumbling. Strangers out of focus. A slap. A cry.
Beau is born. And, from that moment on, it seems… Beau is afraid.
Cut to adulthood. Beau’s still afraid, and not without reason: he lives in a heightened, parallel world where dangerous, disturbed and naked people roam the streets and threaten his safety. Yes, literally.
Just crossing the street to the convenience store involves dodging a screaming serial killer he recognises from the news and a zombified dead guy lying in the street. Later, taking a bath, he finds a moment to finally relax - before realising a stranger is clinging to his ceiling high above him, sweating profusely and seconds away from losing his grip. What a metaphor.
But that’s only the beginning. Beau has his house keys stolen, sees his apartment get trashed by a motley crew of street thugs, and misses his flight back home. And that makes his Mum very, very disappointed. And so, once again - Beau is afraid.
Keen to see Beau is Afraid? Head to the cinema for less with Good Tix - eVouchers for cheaper movies you can redeem instantly in cinema or online. Plus, every Good Tix has a donation to charity built-in. Yep, the donation’s on us, and you choose where it goes - like charities that support Mental Health.
What causes does Beau is Afraid explore?
Dealing with the terror of marauding stabby guys and ceiling freaks watching you bathe on a daily basis would probably be enough to send anyone into a cold sweat. And that’s the secret to unlocking what lies beneath Ari Aster’s latest feature exploring human paranoia and extreme emotional responses. He uses a string of fanciful and extreme events to help us feel the kind of clammy-palmed, dry-mouthed panic that’s simply a way of life for those suffering from anxiety and related mental health conditions. It’s a relatability tactic - and it works.
As a viewing experience, all of this might sound confronting and awful, and zero fun. But gang, it’s not the case. Beau is Afraid is funny (often very funny), and wildly fascinating. And while we can’t argue with the confronting bit, we’d rebut with “the best cinema usually is”. While it’s true that Ari Aster’s storytelling sensibility isn’t for everyone, his films always feel inspired, alive, and spectacularly unique.
How unique? Like how one of Beau’s tormentors is so tattooed, even his eyeballs are inked. Like how Beau learns on a phonecall from the postman that a key character’s been crushed by a chandelier. Like how, in the bath, we spot a glimpse of Beau’s comically swollen testicles (so large that later, as Beau experiences sex for the first time, his lover sits on them like a pillow). The oddness is the point: these WTF elements combine to amuse and disorient us; to put us in Beau’s head.
To tell his tale, Aster has teamed up with Oscar-winner Joaquin Phoenix; no stranger to dark & subversive comedies like I’m Still Here, Inherent Vice and Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot. Together, they’ve built a partnership of trust: one where Aster trusts Phoenix to underpin his out-there story points with deeply felt emotion, and Phoenix trusts Aster to capture that emotion with respect. This is not a story that mocks the lives or actions of anxiety disorder sufferers - of which there are 3.3 million Australians. To put that stat in context: for every 6 adults you know, one of them could easily be Beau.
The theme of domestic and family violence also emerges as the film plays out, drip-feeding clues about Beau’s childhood and how the seeds of abuse sewn by his mother decades ago have since bloomed into full-blown adult trauma. The motif of water is used as a common thread for this: we see Beau as a child being screamed at in the bathtub, through his own eyes. His water is shut off in his apartment during his phone call with his mother. He wakes up face-down in a puddle on an imagined search for his non-existent sons. And a dreamlike climactic scene sees Beau adrift in a dinghy with a sputtering engine, marooned on a lake in the centre of a gigantic colosseum. Packed with a faceless crowd, Beau listens in horror as a booming MC recaps the most embarrassing stories from Beau’s life and assesses his guilt.
Who among us hasn’t had a nightmare like that?!
What’s the key scene in Beau is Afraid?
While it feels like every scene is key in this psychological opus, there are two that really stand out. The first is a bit spoilery, so we’ll tread carefully: it involves a revelation about Beau’s father, who he’s never met… because he died on the night Beau was conceived. Or so Beau’s mother led him to believe. When the truth comes out, we learn the full extent of what Beau has been deprived of his whole life - like a romantic partner - and we feel the horror of how much damage and deep-seated fear his mother’s narcissistic lies have caused him.
The second is a long fantasy sequence that’s the most expressionistic of the whole film, and by far the most heartfelt. Beau stumbles upon an open-air theatre where a play is being staged. As he watches, he becomes the lead character, and the play becomes about him. In an elaborate montage (with backdrops that look like animated, paper cutouts), we see Beau build a home, meet a wife and create a family - but they’re swept away in a terrible flood.
Beau travels and searches, begs strangers for help, and traipses across foreign lands, but cannot find them. As an old man, down to his last dollar, he stumbles upon an open-air theatre where a play is being staged… (sound familiar?). The old Beau sits down to watch, and realises the characters on stage are his three lost sons. His decades-long search is over. He calls to the boys, and they embrace in tears.
WE KNOW it’s not real. Beau didn’t age, and he has no sons… he’s just imagining and processing (oh, and by this stage of the film, he’s also been hit by a truck and knocked unconscious by a forest branch - sooo, fair to say he’s not at his sharpest). But the pure emotion of the scene legitimately packs a wallop. We’d defy you not to be moved as an elderly Beau sobs and, one at a time, takes his boys into his arms for the first time in years.
As echoed by an analysis in the LA Times, it’s a reflection of a life that Beau won’t ever get to experience himself. As he snaps back to reality, and his “sons” vanish, we feel the loss like a gut punch. Another hint of normalcy, cruelly snatched away.
What are the reviews saying about Beau is Afraid?
- "Challenging, yes, but its reward is the way it uses art as a lightning rod. Love it or hate it, you're not going to forget it.”
- Detroit News - “Beau Is Afraid is abrasive and dense, but that’s to be saluted. Aster is cashing in on the success of his first two films to create something daringly vulnerable for a wide audience.”
- The Atlantic - “It’s the ‘Citizen Kane’ of Mommy-Issues Movies”
- Rolling Stone
Fully on board, or disagree big time? We’d love to hear your take. Leave a review to share your thoughts with the good.film community!
So… why should I see Beau is Afraid?
Truth be told, maybe you shouldn’t. You know those dreams where you’re late for something important, and even though you try desperately to get there, things keep derailing you on your way? It’s like that. If you’re an anxiety sufferer, the sensations Aster evokes and the clear distress Beau feels through most of the runtime might be a bit too close to the bone. And let’s not forget: it’s a three hour movie.
BUT. While that may be a ‘hard pass’ for some, you have to trust us when we say that no bunch of words can possibly sum up the totally unique delight and strange wonder that you feel watching Beau is Afraid. If only for three hours, it will truly change your mindset.
As Vox sums up, “Beau Is Afraid is not a puzzle to be solved or a mystery to be unlocked. That’s by design. Sink into it and don’t try to pick it apart, and you’ll get it. Get stuck on the details and you’ll lose the plot.”
As Beau, Joaquin Phoenix grounds our hero with a gentle and hopeful heart. He conveys Beau’s anxiety and trauma in ways that make us want to reach into the screen for a hug. His emotions feel real, and so does our empathy. Paired with Aster’s sensitive direction, the result is a film that draws us into the mindset of a mental health condition in the most daring and cinematic style.
In more ways that one, then, Beau is Afraid is a film with a really, really big set of balls.
