REVIEW: New A24 Film Beau Is Afraid, Is Kind Of Like a 3-Hour Fever Dream

I needed to spiritually cleanse my soul after witnessing the new A24 3-hour fever dream, Beau is Afraid. Is everyone that bad? Apparently so, in this wildly funny yet violent mommy issues-ridden think piece that will have you asking yourself, “What did I just watch and why?”

Writer and director Ari Aster (Hereditary, Midsommar) is back with a one-man’s paranoid journey through a very traumatized life, portrayed by Academy Award-winning actor Joaquin Phoenix as Beau Wassermann. We just aren’t quite sure who’s doing the traumatizing; is it Beau, or are the things we are seeing him experience really there or all in his head?

The film opens with Beau at his therapist’s (Stephen McKinley Henderson) office, discussing his feelings for his highly successful and controlling yet distant mother (Patti LuPone), his childhood, and wishing for her demise when prompted with questions. His therapist scrawls “guilty” in his notebook as we see him prescribe a new medication to help with Beau’s paranoia and anxiety, which absolutely must be taken with a full glass of water.

We see Beau pick up speed into an almost Forest Gump-like run, but only much faster, as he heads home to his apartment building. Beau happens to reside in a toxic concrete jungle that is riddled with drug addicts, thieves, gunshots, loud music, and a fully tattooed bald-headed heathen that, on first sight of Beau, matches his momentum as he races towards him. He makes it up to his front door just in time to lock out his would-be attacker.

You instantly figure out that this is just a normal daily occurrence for Beau as he almost gets electrocuted coming off his elevator as he walks past flyers that read, “Do not get bit, poisonous spider loose,” as he fiddles through his apartment, preparing to catch a flight the next day to visit his mom.

Throughout the night, Beau is frequented by a neighbor who keeps leaving him notes that read, “music is too loud,” but there is no music playing at all. His sleep is disturbed over and over until it’s time to catch his flight. Beau leaves his keys in the door and luggage in the hall and runs back to grab a memento for his mom, only to discover upon his return that his keys and bag are now stolen.

We hear what seems like a sweet mom on the other line as he tries to explain he’s afraid now that someone has his keys, and the voice grows quiet and cold as she realizes her son isn’t going to make his flight.

One pill popped later, and Beau realizes he not only has nothing to drink but the water in his building has been turned off. Beau must then venture across the street while leaving his building’s door ajar, only to have the entire street of degenerates parade into his building and take over his apartment. One night of debauchery after, whilst having to sleep on the scaffolding next to his apartment window, we see Beau finally in his apartment, only to find out his mother has, in fact, died. He finds out after calling his mom back when his credit card is declined while he is trying to rebook his flight when a UPS guy picks up his mother’s phone to confirm who has found his mother dead in her home, beheaded by a chandelier. Beau is then confronted while taking a bath, with an 8-legged and 2-legged menace that lingered long after he thought all threats in his apartment had dissipated.

Naked and afraid, Beau takes to the streets, running into a killer who has been on the loose and who is equally naked but yielding a bloody knife; Beau ultimately gets hit by a car and then stabbed. We can’t make this up.

Beau moves on as he’s rescued by a surgeon (Nathan Lane) and his wife (Amy Ryan), who turns out to be the person who hits Beau with her car. They have a teenage daughter who is struggling with some unresolved issues of her own. Beau has been given her room to recover in, and he’s awoken to a suburban dream with pink walls and pop posters overlooking a scenic backyard.

The dream turns into a nightmare as the couple, including their daughter, offers to drive him to his mother’s funeral. He was told by her attorney that she couldn’t be buried without him present. The couple also has lost their adult son, who served in the military, and they are taking care of one of his platoon mates who isn’t quite right and has to remain medicated. He’s prone to grabbing dangerous objects and reenacting his time in the bush, and Beau becomes a moving target.

Beau then runs away into the forest after the unfortunate and untimely death of the surgeon’s daughter, and he’s introduced to a traveling theater troop who, through hypnosis, elicit flashforward scenes to a tragic yet euphoric dream. Illustrated with vibrant animations, twists, and turns, Beau appears to be a father to three sons who were lost in an ocean storm along with their mother, who we never see. Only to find him again as he realizes he has actually never ever had sex. He was told early on that his father died conceiving him, and he was deathly afraid of dying of a heart attack in the same way.

There are also flashback scenes of Beau as a pre-teen (Armen Nahapetian) with his mother (Zoe Lister-Jones), showing the complexities of her overbearing nature mixed with scenes of a young friend Elaine (Julia Antonelli), who is Beau’s direct opposite. While he is a recluse and conservative, she is wanderlust, opinionated and sassy.

A grown-up Elaine ends up working for Beau’s mom, as portrayed by Parker Posey, and he is reunited with her when he finally makes it to his mother’s (Patty LuPone) funeral. Things take a turn for the worse as we see Beau confronting his childhood and mommy demons head-on and just looking for a little relief.
The first hour was extremely entertaining, but by hour three, I almost had enough of the train wreck, two-faced, double-crossing, paint-drinking, and pill-popping spectacle. I had to self-care and went for drinks and pasta after. Was the film good? Yes, but it was like being trapped inside a heavily medicated, abused protagonist who not only has zero friends, he’s being hunted for 180 minutes straight by some of the worst people on the planet.

Joaquin Phoenix is brilliant, as well as Nathan Lane, Patty LuPone, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Parker Posey, Amy Ryan, and more. You genuinely feel sorry for Beau; you want someone to help him, and you want him to escape what pains him, but that never happens. I just wanted a little bit more of a reason than stellar performances, great production and cinematography (Pawel Pogorzelski), and shock value to sit through it all.

Check out the trailer below and see the film in theaters on April 21.