I saw the new Ari Aster movie Beau is Afraid today. I don’t know if I’d call it good, but it was worth seeing. Sort of felt like a much more unhinged and less mannered take on Charlie Kaufman style material. I guess it’s like if Kaufman partnered with the Safdie brothers or something. Like, everything that can go wrong for this guy does, constantly, but in inventively surreal ways. It’s kind of just a bunch of set pieces worked into what are essentially little anime arcs. Some of those worked better for me than others.
The movie really threw me off at first with its extended opening bit that to me scanned like a paranoid rural Republican fever dream of life in a big city. At first I was like “wait, is this movie SUPER reactionary!?” At best maybe it was a heightened satire of that worldview? Felt pretty uncomfortable to watch this ultra-violent depiction of demonic homeless people and minorities randomly assaulting people, behaving like wild animals, and storming into the white protagonist’s house and trashing up the place for no reason. Didn’t really feel like it earned that! I did really like the scene where he’s finally alone in the bathtub and he notices droplets splashing from above, then looks up to see a man splayed between the walls, barely holding himself up parallel to the tub, just silently weeping down onto the protagonist. Potent image!
A later segment felt like a satire of upper middle class white suburban families, so maybe Aster was just trying to depict the most paranoid possible understanding of different American folkways or something, but maybe that’s giving him too much credit.
Anyway, I’d say it was less than the sum of its parts, but some of those parts are exceptional. There are some truly great horror scenes and comedy bits mixed in. The phone call with the UPS guy, the part where he gets bullied by teen girl stoners, the absolutely ridiculous sex scene, etc… Go see it if you’re in the mood for a bizarre, ambitious (likely) failure.
Edit: Forgot to mention: The build up to the attic scene was great, but the actual payoff was such dogshit, total A24 stunt bullshit, designed to be posted about on reddit and reacted to in youtube videos, lame lame lame