Review by Nicholas Porteous for Mr. Will Wong
Ari Aster, who birthed (erm, directed) Hereditary and Midsommar, described his latest, Beau is Afraid, at its Toronto Premiere, as feeling “like the end of the road. Whatever I was doing with those [previous] movies, I felt like I was stuffing those themes with dynamite and blowing them up.”.
For better and worse, he’s dead-on in his assessment. Remember Toni Collette, suddenly engulfed in flames at the end of a dream sequence in Hereditary? How about any of those Midsommar rituals–dealer’s choice? Beau is Afraid takes the most bonkers sequences of Aster’s last two works, turns them up to eleven, and lives inside that realm for most of its hefty three-hour runtime. It’s the story of an extremely anxious man–unequipped to deal with any of the people around him–in particular, his mom. But the more you get to know what he’s up against, the less you can blame him.
For the first 90ish minutes, I found the unhinged and compounding world of Beau absolutely mesmerizing. The Movie is pure, zany nonsense that spun me around, kicked me in the pants and refused to allow for a single breath. Every detail comes together as Beau is hurled from one terrible thing to the next. And although the twists and turns live in a kind-of dream world, Aster finds a thrilling balance between pure nightmare fuel and grounded, day-to-day agony, tethering Beau‘s outrageous adventures to a very real existential dread. That’s Aster‘s superpower as a storyteller, and it’s funny as hell. If Aster wanted to slap a half-baked ending onto those 90 minutes and call it a day, this might be a new favourite, and I could end my review here. Unfortunately, the second half of Beau does not live up to the incredible heights of the first.
Beau starts as a non-stop RIDE through the mind of its title character and morphs into a more specific, arguably dramatic character study–albeit still dripping with absurd ideas. But the Screenplay hasn’t done the work to establish Beau as a real person. He’s obviously a clownish cypher for anxious men everywhere, and lives at the mercy of every other character’s whims. When he opens his mouth, he can barely form sentences. Joaquin Phoenix‘s performance rounds-out Beau and made me feel like there was more going on under the surface (along with an ensemble that really couldn’t be better), but nothing suggests we should take this person seriously beyond being a wonderfully realized caricature of concern. There’s simply not enough meat on the bone for any of the movie’s later dramatic revelations to feel …dramatic or revelatory. And it’s too bad Beau saves its least original and compelling metaphorical riffs for the final scenes–ending with a whimper, even when Aster insists on explosions.
Beau is Afraid is a brilliant but deeply-flawed experience. It’s a gorgeously packaged symphony of slapstick that eventually becomes a disappointing slog, and it’s absolutely worth your time. Sphere Films Canada release BEAU IS AFRAID April 21, 2023.
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