Beau Is Afraid Movie Review

“Beau Is Afraid” is a cinematic ‘shaggy dog’ story, with a meandering path to an inconclusive conclusion. The main character is a weak-willed weaselly wuss. As a grown Man-Child, this guy has serious ‘Mommy’ issues. Perhaps in the end, all of his fears will be justified. But the long and tedious road that he takes to get to the end is frustrating and really not worth the effort.

Beau Wassermann (played by Joaquin Phoenix) is a very phobia-ridden person living is the shadow of his overbearing mother. Since he lives in that baddest part of a bad town, sometimes his fears are well founded. He visits his Therapist (played by Stephen McKinley Henderson) is curious about Beau’s upcoming trip. He is going to visit his mother (for the second or third time this year).

Beau is getting ready to leave and go visit his mother. But the neighborhood is so bad that his keys and suitcase are stolen. They are stolen from right outside his room. He gets assaulted while walking across the street, almost arrested at the corner bodega shop, and his apartment is overrun.

There are hoodlums and hooligans ransacking his place. After sleeping outside on the scaffolding, he comes back to a relaxing hot bath. But even that is interrupted by some ‘hangers-on’. He runs, naked, out into the street. Of course, that means he gets stabbed, and then hit by a car.

Beau, who is a living example of Murphy’s Law, wakes up in the care of a nice suburban couple. Roger (played by Nathan Lane) and his wife Grace (played by Amy Ryan) are caring and sharing individuals. They open up their home to the poor injured Beau. Beau was out cold for a couple days, and now he remembers his quest. He was on his way to visit his mother.

But a phone call just before he was ready to leave told him that she was killed in a terrible incident. Roger insists that he can take Beau to visit the home of now deceased mother. But first, he must rest. The wonderful pair has allowed Beau to take over a spare room. That room belongs to their daughter.

The daughter Tori (played by Kylie Rogers) is none too pleased that this strange middle-aged mama’s body has taken over her room. After all, Beau could use the unused room that belonged to her brother. But no – he was a soldier killed in action, and a hero to his parents. Absolutely nothing can disturb that room.

Beau could share the little mini-camper out in back, and stay with Jeeves (played by Denis Menochet). Jeeves is a fellow soldier who served with their son. Jeeves has serious mental health issues, and he has his murderous eye on Beau.

But things did not go well for Beau (as usual). Soon he is running for his life from the comfy home of Roger and Grace. He is alone out in the woods, but not far behind in the brush is Jeeves. Beau has no idea that a manic drug-induced killer is still after him. Out in the distant forest, Beau comes across a number of free-spirited souls who dedicate their time and energy to putting on plays.

Beau watches a play that appears to be about him. He sees that he can release himself from that shackles of his fear and come out of the shadow of his mother. The play takes a version of Beau into a world of animated goodness and beauty. That is, until Jeeves arrives and shoots up the place.

Beau is back on the run, off to his mother’s place. Every once in a while Beau remembers his younger days. There was a not-old version of his mother, Mona Wassermann (played by Zoe Lister-Jones) and there was young Beau (played by Armen Nahapetian). They were out on a lovely cruise. Beau’s father had died, even before Beau was born.

In fact, as his mother tells it — his father dropped his ‘seed’ and then dropped dead. His mother has told Beau the same thing will happen to him if he, uhh… ever decides to ‘spill his seed’ (as they say in the Bible). On this cruise, young Beau meets a girl his age named Elaine. He promises to ‘save himself’ only for her.

When Beau finally trudge back to his mother’s place, the services are over. He has missed everything. He happens to meet up with a grown-up Elaine (played by Parker Posey). She is an ex-employee of his mother’s business. There is nobody else in the house, so Elaine high-tails it to the bedroom with Beau.

The poor man has been taught his whole life that if he experiences sex, there will an outcome of death. Well that prediction does come true, but not in the way that he had realized. The now deceased Elaine is in a state of immediate rigor mortis. Bad news for a one-night stands.

But, surprise — maybe dear old mother is not dead after all. The fully aged-up Mona (played by Patti LuPone) is there to meet Beau. She has been monitoring everything that happened in his life. Everyplace he has ever been has been under surveillance, under the watchful eye of Mona.

She is watchful and judgmental. She expected Beau to grow into a strong and independent powerful man. Instead she has produced a whiney, whimpering weirdo. Instead of casting a strong shadow, Beau is afraid of his own shadow.

This makes the entire ordeal (and Beau’s entire life) a kind-of reverse ‘Truman Show’. He has up on stage for all of his days. but it was not for the amusement of a global audience. It was the angry, mean and spiteful wrath of his Mother. She is one who has cooked up all of his pain and woe.

She is the one who has led Beau into a no-mans-land of destitution and self-loathing. She is builder of the flawed House of Beau, starting with a shaky foundation and unfinished walls. This is a rich and powerful woman, but not a very nice lady. Talk about a “Mommy Weirdest”!

“Beau Is Afraid” is a loose conglomeration of ideas and fragments, none that ever could reach being anything close to a story. Beau, being the protagonist, has very little about him that could count as being ‘pro’. It is a horrible and abusive story for a passive and pathetic man. Joaquin Phoenix gets as much mileage as he can out of this non-starter of a character.

Perhaps writer and director Ari Aster decided that the praise from the press about his other efforts (“Hereditary” and ‘Midsommer”) has given him the freedom to make anything. Well, he has made something, but the results are less than lavish. This seems overly wrought with baggage of all types. Too creepy, too bleak, too pathetic, too long…

Of what is Beau afraid, and at which location, and at what time? See the title of another, and much better, A24 movie for a possible answer: “Everything, Everywhere, All at Once”.