Ari Aster’s newest movie, Beau Is Afraid, bears a stark similarity to his many short films, which collectively create a portrait of codependent guilt and pain.
“I am so sorry… for what your daddy passed down to you. But I wanted a child, the greatest gift of my life.”
Ari Aster’s Beau is Afraid has been equated to a cinematic nervous breakdown that chronicles Beau Wassermann’s (Joaquin Phoenix) prolonged journey to get home and see his mother, Mona (Patti LuPone), after tragedy strikes. This simple geographical trip transforms into a lucid fantasy of epic proportions as Beau’s past, present, and hypothetical futures are put under scrutiny from a beyond-suffocating guilt trip. Beau enters various states of consciousness and unconsciousness that put him through separate trials. These ordeals may feel disconnected in nature, but they all represent the same goal of Beau coming to terms with the compounded guilt that his mother has internalized within her son to the point that it’s almost a crippling ailment.
Each of the different journeys that Beau experiences throughout Ari Aster’s emotional epic all mirror Aster’s body of short films in one way or another, almost as if Aster himself undergoes the same psychogenic fugue state of self-discovery as he remakes his previous works as one comprehensive magnum opus. There’s a case to be made that Beau is Afraid is several short films combined into one, but that argument can be extended into how it’s an intentionally psychological reworking of Aster’s short films into an emotional culmination. Aster puts himself through the same process as Beau, as both individuals seek to perhaps once and for all put these demons to rest.
Many of Ari Aster’s shorts have ripples that carry over into Beau is Afraid, but 2011’s Beau is literally the kernel of the idea that blossoms into Aster’s latest feature. Beau has Bill Mayo (who passed away in 2019 and also starred in Aster’s The Strange Thing About the Johnsons) as the Joaquin Phoenix stand-in for the titular character, but the seven-minute short is basically the inciting incident that kicks off the 179-minute movie. Beau plans to visit his mother, only to have his keys disappear from his door in the blink of an eye and trigger a downward spiral of shame and fear. Many of the lines of dialogue and interactions from Beau are identical to their counterparts in Beau is Afraid. Aster’s short is heightened as a way to reflect Beau’s paranoia, but it’s not nearly heightened to the same level as its feature film successor.
The most curious detail about Beau is that it concludes with Beau lost in delusion, albeit a place of comfort and happiness as his mother dotes approval upon him that helps ground him back to safety. Beau’s ending plays out like the alternate “happy, but bad” ending to a video game where the story ends before it even gets started, but at least the character is safe. There’s a version of this story where Beau never leaves home and allows the world to swallow him. Here, his mother’s words make Beau feel whole again rather than incite paranoia and push him down an impossible quest that results in death and destruction. It’s fascinating that Aster gravitates towards this particular short as the glue that holds together the rest of his ideas and a mold that’s malleable enough to be prolonged into a three-hour waking nightmare guilt trip.
2011’s The Strange Thing About the Johnsons is Aster’s longest short film, which clocks in at nearly a half-hour, and in many ways it feels like a closer influence on Aster’s previous features, Hereditary and Midsommar. That being said, there are disturbing echoes of this movie that play out during all of the flashbacks that involve a young Beau. The Strange Thing About the Johnsons tells the traumatizing tale of a family in disarray due to the son’s sexual abuse of his father, and the domino effect of pain that accordingly transpires. The Strange Thing About the Johnsons focuses on the frayed bond between a father and son, but Aster’s features tend to put a greater focus on maternal figures, whether it’s Toni Collette’s Annie Graham from Hereditary or Mona Wassermann in Beau is Afraid.
The scenes between a young Beau and his mother in bed–while no physical contact appears to be made–is ripe with the same unspoken tension that fills the seemingly normal domestic snapshots throughout The Strange Thing About the Johnsons. The same is true during Mona’s “resurrection” after Beau finally has sex. This ghost has returned to haunt him while he’s naked, scared, and vulnerable–just like when he’s out of the womb–to pick away at his very nature until there’s nothing left.
Munchausen, alongside There’s Something About the Johnsons, are the two short films that are most heavily felt in Beau is Afraid. Munchausen is a heartbreaking story about a mom who laments the fact that her growing boy is about to leave home and head away to college. The mother, who’s played by Bonnie Bedelia no less, begins to poison her son so that he can’t fly away from the nest and once again needs to rely upon his mother. The most striking aspect of Munchausen is that this dark tale is presented through a sugary sweet lens as if it’s akin to a Pixar short film (the beginning of Up, in particular). It’s a powerful exercise in how much artifice and tone play a factor in the type of story that’s being told, regardless of its plot.
Mona Wassermann from Beau is Afraid is just as duplicitous and selfish as Munchausen’s mother and her elaborately wicked actions are presented through the same fantastical lens. There’s no question that the mother in Munchausen would eventually evolve into someone who commits the type of actions that are on display in Beau is Afraid. These dangerous dynamics between the Wassermanns also reverberate through Amy Ryan’s Grace and Nathan Lane’s Roger, who put on perpetually happy faces and refuse to acknowledge the smell of the decaying corpse of their family.
Many of Aster’s shorts attempt to deconstruct heavy ideas through a stylistic format that naturally lends itself to a certain level of clinical distance. In Basically, Rachel Brosnahan’s Shandy Pickles laments her A-lister life as she listlessly guides the audience through her immense privileges. Shandy’s success lives in the shadow of her mother, which is a major theme through the majority of Aster’s short films and the crux of Beau is Afraid. However, the way in which Shandy’s toxic relationship with her mother is distilled to glossy presentations and a life on camera bears a resemblance to how Beau functions as the perpetual muse to his mother’s ad campaigns for MW Industries. The lines between family and product forever blur and the two are twisted together into an unhealthy byproduct that commodifies love and affection. In a lot of ways, Basically feels like the evolution of 2013’s Munchausen, which gets lost in the same toxic ideas. Beau is Afraid pulls from both of these dark, stylized tales of codependency to demystify Mona’s abuse and magically transform it into love.
Ari Aster has a wickedly dark sense of humor that’s frequently on display in Beau is Afraid as a tool that’s used to disorient the audience and undercut the nihilism. The Turtle’s Head is Aster’s funniest and most ridiculous short film that throws a chauvinistic, slimy detective into chaos once his penis begins to experience a mysterious transformation. The Turtle’s Head is so absurd that it seems like it’s impossible for it to have a reference point in Beau is Afraid. Then Beau’s father is revealed to be a giant malformed penis. This is easily the most bizarre moment from Beau is Afraid that seems to come completely from left field, yet it’s the final piece of the puzzle when the movie is viewed as a rumination on Aster’s shorts. Beau’s father being a giant dick makes subtext literal in the most obvious way possible. However, it also reflects The Turtle’s Head’s theme of body dysmorphia through a literal mutation of the genitalia that occurs during a period of weakness during a midlife crisis.
C’est La Vie is an Aster short from 2016 that operates as a detached snapshot of an apocalyptic Los Angeles where homeless people are presented as an aggressive scourge. This surreal travelogue at first feels like an inconsequential chapter from Aster’s filmography, but it’s hard to not think of C’est La Vie during the first act of Beau is Afraid where rampant homeless individuals are the biggest cause of Beau’s fears. Homeless individuals recur throughout Aster’s short films, while typically depicted as some heightened force of nature, which reaches its apex in Beau is Afraid. It’s highly reminiscent of David Lynch’s abstractly intensified rendition of Los Angeles in Mulholland Dr. and INLAND EMPIRE.
Finally, Beau is Afraid even finds a way to represent Herman’s Cure-All Tonic, Aster’s earliest short film from 2008 and the only one that’s written by Anayat Fakhraie rather than Aster himself. The silly short film chronicles a pharmacist’s struggles after his father’s miracle tonic begins to complicate his job, and eventually, his life. Herman’s Cure-All Tonic digs into the same familial issues of legacy, responsibility, and that children are expected to be reflections and extensions of their parents, whether they’re interested in such a life or not. Herman’s Cure-All Tonic and Beau is Afraid make for complimentary bookends to the first 15 years of Aster’s career and what might function as the beginning phase of his filmography.
Aster’s next film is reported to be Acting Class, a movie that will supposedly star Emma Stone, Joaquin Phoenix, and Christopher Abbott, and sounds like a mix of The Menu and The Master, albeit in the world of the acting. The biggest detail about Acting Class that separates it from Aster’s previous projects is that it will be the first of his films to be an adaptation of someone else’s work, in this case Nick Drnaso’s novel. It’s unclear how close Aster’s adaptation will stick to Drnaso’s novel, but the source material is full of fractured families and lost souls who are searching for meaning and authenticity in a way that feels like a natural fit for the director. Beyond the film adaptation of Nick Drnaso’s novel, Aster has also discussed a western in his future. While it’s hardly impossible for these projects to touch upon Aster’s typical timbre of trauma, it looks like in Beau is Afraid these ideas have finally reached maturity, while new adventures can now grow out of fresh fears.
‘Beau is Afraid’ is now playing in limited theaters with a wide release on April 21.
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