Beau Is Afraid movie review: ‘I could barely sit through three hours of Joaquin Phoenix’s frenetic portrayal of a mentally ill person’ (2024)

Beau Is Afraid (16, 179mins)

Probably not, but it was in this uncharitable state that I endured Beau Is Afraid, a flatulent, sub-Freudian horror show directed with many flourishes but no discipline by Guignol wunderkind Ari Aster.

A kind of anatomy of the neurotic, it follows the unfortunate Beau Wasserman (Joaquin Phoenix) from unhappy birth to miserable middle age, his woes blamed early and often on his cruel and self-absorbed mother.

The film opens as Beau emerges from the birth canal, blinded by light and made anxious already by the sound of his mother’s voice, giving out about something — probably him.

Forward we jump then to the inevitable therapy session, as a middle-aged, unkempt and balding Beau shares his woes with a shrink (Stephen McKinley Henderson).

We are told that Beau’s father died in the instant of his conception, his murmurous heart unable to withstand the rigours of intercourse.

Beau has a murmur too and has avoided sex his whole adult life for fear it might be the end of him.

He’s effectively castrated then and the finger of suspicion falls squarely on his mother.

Played in childhood flashbacks by Zoe Lister-Jones, Mona Wasserman is a beautiful, remote and stylish woman, head of a rapidly expanding pharmaceutical company, and icily dismissive of those less brilliant than herself.

Beau dreads her unkind gaze and has removed himself to the apparently crime-ridden city of Corrina, where he hunkers in a dingy flat avoiding her phone calls and all gainful employment.

Beau is Afraid - Official Trailer

He’s profoundly neurotic, pops antidepressants like Smarties and exists in a constant state of heightened fear.

Is his neighbourhood really as bad as it seems, with dead bodies lying in the street and a naked man running amok with a knife?

We’re never sure, but in the film’s funniest scene, the peril seems real, as Beau gets locked out of his apartment building while allowing the neighbourhood’s homeless and addicted to stream in to hold a chaotic party in his flat.

He watches the festivities glumly from below, acceptant of calamity, which appears to be his lot.

Next day, he gets stabbed by some nut and run over by a car. Of course he does, but then his luck appears to change as he’s taken in by Grace and Roger (Amy Ryan, Nathan Lane), a couple with ludicrously good intentions.

While they nurse him back to health, he digests some dreadful news: his mother has died. Beau is devastated, or is he?

Early on, when his therapist had asked him if he sometimes wished his mother was dead, his response was equivocal.

Now though, he must gather his strength for the arduous journey south to his mother’s funeral.

On the way, he will get lost in a mysterious forest, fall in with a travelling band of new-age actors, be attacked by a demented war veteran and endure a memorably intense encounter with a childhood sweetheart (Parker Posey, in an eye-catching cameo).

Most of the time, Beau’s neurosis is played for laughs — like Woody Allen without the libido, he whines and moans, protests feebly, and fails to either explain or assert himself at every turn.

Phoenix, a showy actor, is given free rein to unleash a barrage of fidgets and tics, but for all that, it’s an oddly static performance, and no matter how much experience Beau ingests, he never seems to evolve or change.

As always in Aster’s films, there is impressive technique, visual invention.

He’s called his film “a Jewish Lord Of The Rings” — if only it was that much fun. The clunking psychoanalysis, giddy misanthropy and Phoenix’s frenetic presence do not add up to a fun time at the cinema, especially when you’re going to have to endure his company for three interminable hours.

And the film ends in chaos, as the screenplay succumbs to its worst excesses.

I wonder has Aster’s mother seen it.

Rating: Two stars