Review: Ari Aster returns with surrealist epic ‘Beau Is Afraid’

When Ari Aster said in a 2019 Reddit Ask Me Anything post that his next film may be a “zonky nightmare comedy,” the idea wasn’t hard to imagine.

Across the filmmaker’s previous output, including the features “Hereditary” and “Midsommar,” he’s flirted with darkly comic undertones despite their horrific exteriors.

Now, four years later, Aster is taking his biggest swing yet with “Beau Is Afraid,” a three-hour surrealist black comedy that certainly fits that mold.

“A paranoid man embarks on an epic odyssey to get home to his mother” is how it’s described in the official synopsis. But that’s only scratching the surface of the twisted but often hilarious journey it puts its protagonist, and viewers, through.

Based on Aster’s seven-minute 2011 short “Beau,” the film lets viewers into the mind of the anxious and fearful Beau Wassermann, played by Joaquin Phoenix in the present and the uncannily similar Armen Nahapetian in childhood flashbacks.

Opening with a visit to his therapist, played by Stephen McKinley Henderson, it’s revealed that the anniversary of his father’s death is approaching. To mark the occasion, he’s planning to visit his mother, Mona, played by Patti LuPone in the present and Zoe Lister-Jones in flashbacks.

He’s prescribed a new anti-anxiety medication and heads home to his dilapidated apartment in a crime-ridden neighborhood, overrun with everything from unreasonably angry neighbors and a brown recluse spider to the more extreme, like a serial stabber, home invaders, and chaos in the streets.

After his trip is delayed by a pair of stolen apartment keys and he’s hit by a truck, he wakes up in the care of Grace and Roger, played by Amy Ryan and Nathan Lane, respectively. The couple seem sweet, friendly and accommodating, but repeatedly offer excuses as to why he can’t leave yet. Mysterious medication, cryptic messages, security monitoring systems, and a temperamental daughter and military veteran make the experience all the more ominous for him.

An odd theater production in the woods, dream sequence courtesy of Chilean “The Wolf House” animators Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña, war zone-esque shootout, and more that one has to see to believe are just some of what follow in the film’s zany, almost indescribable and unspoilable narrative, as Phoenix’s character, haunted by memories of his upbringing, including a fraught relationship with his overbearing mother as well as his long-lost childhood crush Elaine Bray (played by Parker Posey in the present and Julia Antonelli in flashbacks), finds himself on an absurdist journey home in the face of the strange and threatening.

It would be hard to argue with those who call “Beau Is Afraid” self-indulgent, with the film having already proven alienating for some. Although it doesn’t reach the mammoth four-hour runtime Aster had teased in years past, it’s still a sizable 179 minutes, surpassing even the director’s cut of “Midsommar” in scale. But while there are moments in which the length can be felt or the nightmarish scenarios confound, Aster’s ambition is admirable.

Never boring, “Beau Is Afraid” is as unpredictable as it’s entertaining with a patient, open-minded audience. The dark sense of humor on display dampers what should otherwise be perceived as disturbing, though not in a way that feels like Aster is undercutting himself. The filmmaker’s horror sensibilities and the visual aptitude he’s come to be known for remain on display.

A24 is certainly taking a chance after the one-two punch of Aster’s “Hereditary” and “Midsommar,” the former still among the distributor-producer’s highest-grossing films. But while the more divisive “Beau Is Afraid” has landed for some and turned away others in disgust, it’s another interesting work from Aster, one that leaves much to interpretation and will likely prove more rewarding with further viewings.

“Beau Is Afraid” opens in theaters on Friday, April 21.

This article appears in Apr 20-26, 2023.