‘Beau is afraid’, explained: The weirdest and most surreal movie of the year with Joaquin Phoenix and the director of ‘Hereditary’ and ‘Midsommar’ that will blow your mind

Let’s start with the easy. ‘Beau is afraid’ is a film directed by Ari Aster (‘Hereditary’, ‘Midsommar’) and starring Joaquin Phoenix. So far, all good. But little more. From now on I can’t assure you that what you are going to see/read has a minimum of logic or common sense.

‘Beau is afraid’ is the craziest and most surreal movie of the year, and surely one of the weirdest movies of the 21st century.. We are talking about a level at the level of David Lynch, Darren Aronofsky, Yorgos Lanthimos or Charlie Kaufman. So weird. A psychedelic trip (Joaquin Phoenix already warned you not to eat hallucinogenic mushrooms before seeing it) and unpredictable in which you never know what will happen next, and many times You also don’t quite believe what is happening even though you have witnessed the facts facts.

Normally we do an “explained ending” for first-run movies and series, but with ‘Beau is afraid’ I’m going to try to explain the ending, the beginning and everything in between, although I think it’s going to be a practically impossible task. All the theories that occurred to me during the film were falling one after another with the next scene, as if the film itself was playing to boycott its coherence and my sanity..

It is also true that surely more than one (and more than two) viewings will be needed to be able to fully glimpse what Aster poses, since the film is so full of details and messages in the background that it seems like an overloaded ‘Mortadelo’ comic. and Philemon’. But hey let’s try. And of course we have to get into SPOILER TERRITORY for it.

‘Beau is afraid’: Is the key in its beginning?

‘Beau’s Afraid’ opens with Beau Wasserman (Joaquin Phoenix) at the psychiatrist’s office, where we learn that Beau is going to be traveling to his mother’s house for the anniversary of his father’s death, and he is quite anxious about it. Well, actually The film opens with the birth of Beau, who is so afraid of going out into the world from his mother’s womb that he doesn’t even dare cry.. We intuit that there is a traumatic relationship between the two, surely since childhood, and that Beau is afraid of many things, but most of all his mother..

That is why his psychiatrist prescribes a new experimental drug, which you should ALWAYS take with water. And he puts a lot of emphasis on this. It’s very important. And, maybe you don’t give it importance because a few minutes later there is a whole sequence in which Beau desperately tries to get water to wash down the pills and he gets really messed up, but, if you notice, the first thing Beau does when he leaves the office , before the surreal and unreal maelstrom that will engulf us for three hours, is to swallow two capsules. Is this the cause of everything that comes after? Is it all a hallucination caused by an experimental drug misused? Hopefully. That would be an easy explanation which would not require much further development. But hey, let’s try to describe everything that Beau has to experience from there and look for new meanings, while we are.

Beau’s home is in the worst building in the world.. His neighborhood is full of looters and murderers who crowd like a mob in front of his portal, sharing a facade with the erotic shop ‘Erectus Ejectus’. Bodies rot on the pavement and a serial stabber runs naked down the street. His stairwell is covered in obscene graffiti, and to top it off, there’s a deadly poisonous spider loose in the building. But home is home, after all, and Beau seems resigned and almost used to it.

Beau tries to sleep but a crazy neighbor spends the whole night slipping schizophrenic messages under the door and playing loud music, which causes him to our unfortunate protagonist falls asleep during the day and misses the flight (And the house keys. And the suitcase. Really Beau, get your act together.)

‘Beau is afraid’ and Murphy’s Law: If something can go wrong, it will go worse

This is the pattern of ‘Beau is afraid’: Something strange happens, and instead of dealing with it, Beau simply submits to reality (or what he thinks is his reality) and then ends up paying a much worse price for it. his lack of courage. If one thing can go wrong in ten different ways, Beau finds an even more horrible eleventh..

A bad night ends with dozens of thugs besieging his apartment and destroying it completely, a hit-and-run with a stabbing (a 2 for 1) and a call from a UPS delivery man (played by the protagonist of ‘Barry’ Bill Hader) with very bad news: Beau’s mother no longer has a head. She has suffered an accident and her chandelier has fallen from her ceiling, smashing it. Something similar to what happens to Beau in the bathtub when a man falls on top of him scared by a real chandelier (not a lamp. In other words, not a chandelier, but a man hanging from the ceiling with a spider on his face, which falls on top of him. Look what I know, I do what I can).

‘Beau is afraid’ is not reality, but Beau’s worst fears “coming true”. And that’s why, when he seems to be regaining her peace at Grace and Roger’s, “her reality” of her slaps him on the face again.

What seemed like an adorable and altruistic couple trying to help him end up being two buzzards, traumatized by the loss of a son in the war, who try to adopt him to the chagrin of their teenage daughter and Jeeves (Denis Ménochet himself from ‘As bestas’ in the craziest role of his career), an ex-soldier who is still thought to be the enemy lurking in the bushes.

Finally, Beau runs away and finds a haven of peace in the woods. Spoiler: it goes wrong.

‘Beau is afraid’: The calm before the umpteenth storm

After running into the woods, he meets a pregnant young woman (Hayley Squires) who leads him to a small community of actors, all orphans. They travel putting on plays and are about to premiere a new one. And, of course, the play is the hero’s journey (another one).

Beau is paralyzed, mesmerized, inserting himself into what he is seeing, a tale that begins as a traditional fable and soon begins to derail into a play that appears to be about him and his three children. oh and everything is in animated format, in stop-motionthanks to Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña, those responsible for the Chilean film ‘La casa lobo’.

How could Beau have three children when, as we learn in his flashbacks, his mother has assured him that his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather died with their first ejaculation? Well, it’s not the least sense of the movie. Beau begins to remember pieces of his past, such as the first love he felt on a cruise with a girl named Elaine.but then Jeeves appears in the brush and has to run again, this time, to get to his mother’s house.

‘Beau Is Afraid’: Home, Bittersweet Home

Beau is late. The funeral was ending and he feels lonely in a house full of images of him. but then meets Elaine again, so many years later. And they lie down. And Beau doesn’t die, to everyone’s surprise. But, when he is celebrating, he realizes that the one who has died is Elaine. But her mother, no, her mother is still alive and has been watching everything. Although for a short time, as Beau strangles her. This is already a mix between a soap opera and ‘Fast and Furious’, where people die and resurrect every two by three.

From the attic scene, with a monster in the shape of a giant cock, I’m going to pass directly, you’re going to have to forgive me. I no longer gave for more.

‘Beau is afraid’: The final judgment

After it’s all over, Beau pilots a small boat out into the calm night waters he’s seen in his dream and into a cave. He may be coming home, but we all know that Beau is unable to find rest and peace. Suddenly, the lights go on and she is in a stadium where a divine judgment is being held on her soul, with her mother (and her lawyer) brandishing accusations about her person. Beau also has a shyguy on his side, but guess what… This one ends up smashed into a rock in true ‘Midsommar’ style.

Defeated, Beau never comes home. Or maybe this is his house. In her last moments, his eyes, full of sadness, also reach a certain resignation. Of course, this is how things end; Of course, things will never get better. Everything that could go wrong, goes wrong. Until the end. Until fears engulf Beau forever.