"Beau is Afraid" is, um, not for me

I walked into the theater showing Beau is Afraid on Saturday night explaining to my friend that we were in one of the greatest film eras in history. I walked out wondering if cinema was dead. 

As we found our seats, I told him how lucky we were to be alive at a time when a young filmmaker like Ari Aster could get tens of millions of dollars for what promised to be a pure and uncompromised artistic vision. I walked out thinking that something has gone very, very wrong in the industry of film.

It’s not that Beau is Afraid is worthless. Good art provokes a reaction, and it almost doesn’t matter what that reaction is. So to be clear: When I left the theater that night, I was angry. Angry at Beau is Afraid for being three hours long and intermittently boring, beguiling, and disgusting, often in the same scene. For having greatness within its grasp and rejecting it. For the fact that I gave up a chance to see Raging Bull on the big screen that night to see this instead (okay, that’s on me, but still). But mostly it made me angry for its refusal to offer a hand, a finger, even a pinky to those who don’t instantaneously connect to the gonzo plight of its central character, its overwrought themes of anxiety and guilt, and its idiosyncratic vision of a world gone mad.

The character is Beau (Joaquin Phoenix), a middle-aged man with severe anxiety that seems entirely justified, given the state of the world outside his door. The streets are filled with violent madmen; when Beau needs to urgently dash across the way in order to buy a bottle of water to take his medication, it looks like he’s running through a war zone. These early scenes gave me hope that Aster had conjured up a slightly-heightened reality, commenting on the urban chaos that genuinely afflicts a few American cities but mostly lives in the imagination of millions of anxiety-ridden Fox News viewers. 

The other oppressive force in Beau’s life is elemental: his mother (Patti LuPone), who tortures him through emotional withholding. We watch his face as he talks to her on the phone. She’s enthusiastic about seeing him that evening, but when he informs her that he has lost his keys and will miss his flight home, the line goes silent and she quickly hangs up, leaving him pained and desperate to win back her affections. Is Beau more stunted by the slow-burn psychological damage inflicted by his mother or the acutely violent world lurking just outside his door? The answer is yes.

The script has potential for keen insight into the modern condition, but with every subsequent step Beau takes, the film’s reality grows evermore heightened until there’s nothing left to grasp. Setting out for his mother’s home, he immediately gets hit by a car, but is restored to health by a husband and wife (Amy Ryan and Nathan Lane) who have lost their son to actual combat and see Beau as a replacement. Weird things happen there—I could tell you about them, but I don’t think they’d make any sense, as they didn’t to me at the time—and Beau ends up on the run again. He visits a theater troupe in the forest, where he receives a story that seems strangely like his own. We get flashbacks to his childhood and learn about the girl (literally, she was like 10) who got away. Eventually, he makes it to his mother’s house, where a terrifying glimpse into the home that produced a terrified man awaits us.

I must admit: There are images in Beau is Afraid I will probably never shake. The naked stabby man. A teenage girl grief-drinking a can of paint. A giant, semi-sentient penis and testicles (yes, really). Aster is adept at image-making, but not so good with story and character, and Beau is Afraid succumbs to his worst tendencies. Beau might have a rich backstory on the page, but he’s a fundamentally passive character who makes virtually no choices, which typically reveal character better than exposition.  His blind commitment to his mother should feel rich with pathos, but the film finds no actual meaning in his journey home. There’s no real drama here, just a series of bizarre encounters with people who seem ripped from different universes. Nothing Beau does seems to matter to anyone. The question that remains at the end of the film is not why Beau is afraid—that one gets answered, more or less—but why we should care that he is.

I suppose it’s for the balls. Beau is Afraid is what’s characterized these days as a “big swing,” a work of uncompromising vision and length designed to challenge casual viewers and be hailed by cinephiles for its refusal to appease the masses. Film folks love a big swing these days, mostly because they feel like an antidote to our era of safe, IP-driven blockbusters designed only to set up their own sequels (which, in turn only exist to set up their sequels). But we need to be careful. To award extra credit to a film simply for the boldness of its attempt is bankrupt criticism. We still have to watch the screen carefully, experience what works and what doesn’t, and describe it with acuity and precision. 

The big swing-ness of Beau is Afraid lies mostly in Aster’s refusal to even consider the sensibility of his audience.  The script feels less written than regurgitated onto the page, and while the result is admirably raw and disgusting, it is never once vulnerable. Vulnerability comes from a willingness to connect or to meet someone halfway, and Aster is strictly a his-side-of-the-street kinda guy. Here it’s a case of a film being too aligned with its self-centered protagonist. Beau is so desperately pathetic, and his relationship with his deceased mother so clearly fucked, that true human connection feels like an impossibility. It’s sad and pathetic, and it also backs Aster into the most uninteresting of corners. The film can’t connect, and it doesn’t even have the language to do so. So give me a big swing, yes, but swing toward another, towards connection and communication, not just into the darkest corners of yourself.

Does this sound like fun to you? I know it genuinely does for some. For me, it’s a symptom of a creative industry that has lost the middle. I’ve complained as much as anyone about the hegemony of the comic book movie, which for a brief time accessed the anticipatory euphoria of serialized storytelling but now routinely produced three solid hours of Easter eggs for its most ardent fans. Beau is Afraid does the same thing for today’s cinephiles. It’s so giddy with what it has achieved in scope, budget, and runtime that it never considers communicating with those outside its circle of fandom. It’s catnip for those who value artistic vision over competent storytelling, but cat poop for everyone else.

The best films, in my opinion, are acts of translation. They strive to process their idiosyncrasies and find something universal in the esoteric. For years, this was most often accomplished through the studio system, where directors fought for artistic integrity and studios kept their eye on the bottom line. A guy in a suit would insist that the film not be too alienating. This approach had severe drawbacks—for starters, those are the guys who for over a century insisted audiences couldn’t relate to protagonists of color. These days, the guys in suits only see commercial value in intellectual property, and good storytelling is an afterthought at best.

There is still value, though, in balancing commercial and artistic instincts. Beau is Afraid is produced by A24, the recent Oscar champion that’s celebrated by the film community for letting its auteurs indulge themselves. If you have a filmmaker who wants to connect, the results are transcendent. You get a Moonlight, a Minari, an Aftersun, or a Showing Up. These are personal films that never navel-gaze. The filmmakers indulge their characters but not themselves. Beau is Afraid ain’t like that. It only looks inward. Some people get off on that, and if that’s you, well, you know what you’re doing for three hours this weekend.

By all means, go into Beau is Afraid willing to sublimate yourself to Aster’s vision. It’s probably the best way to enjoy it. But if you’re looking for a conversation, be prepared for him to refuse your requests for reciprocation and use your outstretched arm to pull you further into the muck. That’s not what I want in a film. It’s easy to slap your psyche on the table and demand to be taken seriously. It’s harder to communicate what’s important to you in a way that people understand. Credit where credit is due: Beau is Afraid has balls. What we need is courage.