Beau Is Afraid<\/em>, but it fills you with a constant sense of panic and unease, feelings that might make you giggle as much as its bizarre sense of humor. These anxiety-inducing images burrow into your brain, making you wonder days later if it’s a remnant of watching the movie or something you dreamt after eating pizza at midnight. Or both. <\/p>\n\n\n\nThe basic plot is at once simple and difficult to explain. At its most elemental level, Beau Is Afraid<\/em> follows Joaquin Phoenix\u2019s bewildered, easily intimidated Beau as he travels home to visit his mother (Patti LuPone) and encounters numerous obstacles along the way. It\u2019s as familiar \u2014 and fantastical \u2014 as a fairy tale, but there is so much<\/em> going on here, and talking about it with any detail would threaten the joy and confusion of each wild turn the movie takes in its episodic wandering. Shot by Aster\u2019s frequent collaborator Pawel Pogorzelski, each segment has a different feel and visual style, ranging from an apocalyptic cityscape in unsparing sunlight to the layers of a forest at night. One jaunt finds an aging Phoenix traversing a wondrous animated landscape, upping the phantasmagoric elements even higher with its story-within-a-story structure. <\/p>\n\n\n\nBeau Is Afraid<\/em> simultaneously creates a sense of having never seen anything like this, while offering flashes of familiarity to works like The Odyssey<\/em>, The Truman Show<\/em>, Defending Your Life<\/em>, and Synecdoche, New York<\/em>. It\u2019s Kafkaesque and Kaufmanesque, with Beau’s obstacles found both internally and externally. His world feels like a catalog of phobias at every turn. If one element doesn\u2019t unnerve you, just wait: surely something in the next scene or two will. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Beau Is Afraid<\/em> curls the audience up in their seats out of second-hand embarrassment at witnessing something so intimate and raw. Freudian adherents will have plenty to mine in the relationship between Beau and his mother, but even those who insist on a literal interpretation of everything on screen will find the movie\u2019s meaning clear \u2014 or at least as clear as it can be \u2014 in a late moment that offers the most deranged attic scene since Hereditary<\/em>. (What was the deal with Aster\u2019s childhood attic?!?) Anything that possibly could\u2019ve been considered subtext is brought to the surface in this truly wild sequence. <\/p>\n\n\n\nPhoenix perfectly mumbles and bumbles through Beau\u2019s various levels of panic, which range from mild discomfort and confusion to all-out hysteria. In this collaboration with Aster, he has created an entirely different brand of antisocial weirdo than his Oscar-winning turn in Joker<\/em> \u2014 and one that\u2019s far more interesting. He\u2019s at the center of every scene (except those where a teenage Beau is played by Armen Nahapetian), surrounded by a cast that rotates in and out with every new horror Beau has to endure, including Parker Posey, Amy Ryan, Nathan Lane, Richard Kind, and Zoe Lister-Jones.<\/p>\n\n\n\nBeau Is Afraid<\/em> itself is an act of endurance, not only in its runtime but also in its deliberately discombobulating approach. This isn\u2019t a movie meant to be half-watched; its ambition, scope, and sheer strangeness require your full attention, even if giving that level of engagement is emotionally and mentally exhausting. Beau Is Afraid <\/em>gleefully alienates the audience at every turn, immersing them in an experience whose overall unpleasantness will outweigh any of the pleasures of its craft or its inventiveness for much of the audience. When the credits appear, you either won\u2019t be able to say a word or you won\u2019t be able to stop talking \u2014 or thinking \u2014 about it for days. <\/p>\n\n\n\nB<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n“Beau Is Afraid” is out now in New York and Los Angeles. It opens Friday nationwide.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
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