Beau Is Afraid review: irritating and uncomfortable, by design

There’s a sure type of unhealthy film that reaches a particular threshold of annoying. It’s a nasty film the place each few scenes it’s important to admit that what’s taking place proper now kinda guidelines. If it was simply unhealthy during, you may simply dismiss the entire enterprise. As a substitute, you argue with your self concerning the half the place one character does this and one other character does that. “And the set design!” you assume. “You gotta give props to that. Okay, this isn’t a complete failure,” you conclude, “however please by no means make me sit by way of it once more.” Then you definately come throughout it someday and say, “I hate this film, however this bit arising is nice, maintain on.”

The latest entry to this ignoble pantheon is Ari Aster’s Beau Is Afraid, an unbearable three-hour slog that may make Terry Gilliam say “reel it in a bit, would ya?” It’s juvenile and pointless, loud and abrasive, and never anyplace as intelligent because it thinks it’s. There are, nonetheless, particular person moments sprinkled all through that genuinely hum with greatness.

After a brief introductory scene the place Beau Wasserman (Joaquin Phoenix, at his most whiny and affected) has a remedy session together with his heat and reliable shrink (Stephen McKinley Henderson), we uncover that the world of this movie just isn’t our actuality. Certain, one might say the exaggerated city hellscape is simply this delusional paranoid’s interpretation of metropolis residing, but when that’s the case we’re by no means provided that third-person anchor. We’re inside Beau’s head the entire time, and whereas the over-the-top violence, chaos, and filth is definitely very humorous (there are murder-hungry homeless zombies and plagues at each flip), it will get exhausting reasonably shortly.

Beau is planning a visit to go to his mom (Patti LuPone now, Zoe Lister-Jones in reminiscence), however destiny has different plans. When Beau turns his again on his baggage and his keys for 3 seconds, they’re snatched. Then he learns that Mother has been killed in a freak chandelier accident and he should return for a burial instantly. Each second he delays he’s being a unhealthy son.

A wierd odyssey (with direct references to Homer’s The Odyssey) ensues, increasing out to punishing, maximalist lengths. Some scenes are fairly good, like a tale-within-the-tale that mixes animation and intelligent stagecraft. Different sequences, nonetheless, drag on; an abrasive B-plot about an indignant warfare veteran who desires to kill Beau strives to be the “Lone Biker of the Apocalypse” bit from the Coen Brothers’s Elevating Arizona, nevertheless it cuts collectively just like the noisy bedlam of Steven Spielberg’s 1941. The film concludes with a slew of sophomoric dick jokes and hackneyed gags about an overbearing Jewish mom (For the file, my Jewish mom may be very good).

The principle drawback is that this: Phoenix is appearing his brains out and taking this all very significantly however when a film is so untethered to actuality there are merely no stakes. Aster and Phoenix guess the ranch that when the zaniness is paused and the chronically-afraid Beau expresses disappointment or terror, we’ll join with the drama. It’s very tough to string that needle, and Beau Is Afraid just isn’t, sadly, a profitable mannequin. It’s completely different from cringe comedy; it’s real discomfort. Finally you simply must shout “shut up, already!”

The film begins with the amount cranked to 10, then by no means takes a breath. At three hours it’s insufferable. Sure, that is meant to be a “unhealthy journey” of a film, taking you contained in the expertise of somebody present process a disaster, however there’s a restrict. After which it’s revealed that this grown man has mommy points. For that you just made me sit by way of all this noise?

It’s just like the satanic velocity metallic band, Slayer. A Slayer tune from time to time actually will get the blood pumping, however I’ve by no means been in a position to hearken to a whole Slayer album. In some unspecified time in the future I shout “sufficient!” and switch the friggin factor off. Beau Is Afraid is a Slayer album.

Ari Aster is a reasonably intelligent dude, and Midsommar and Hereditary are well-respected films. In a latest interview with GQ he confirmed that he’s effectively conscious many will share my response to the film. On the finish of the day, a “huge swing” is at all times higher than a throwaway, and anybody who sits by way of Beau Is Afraid received’t neglect the expertise. Certainly, what ought to terrify a filmmaker most is having no influence on an viewers. Of that, Aster has no cause to be afraid.

Beau Is Afraid involves theaters on April 21, 2023