Beau Is Afraid

Beau Wasserman is the son of a famous and wealthy businesswoman, Mona, who is responsible for building a large conglomerate empire, "MW Industries". He grows up without a father, who his mother says died during an orgasm (which was also when Beau was conceived) as a result of a hereditary heart murmur that she claims was passed down to Beau. As a teenager on a cruise trip with his mother, Beau meets and falls in love with a girl named Elaine. The two kiss and promise to remain virgins until they meet again as adults.

As an adult, Beau is extremely anxious and living alone in the crime-ridden city of Corrina. His therapist prescribes an experimental drug for his anxiety and warns him to only take it with water. He prepares for a flight to Wasserton to see his mother for the anniversary of his father's death, but sleeps through his alarm after a neighbor keeps him awake with their loud music. After hastily packing, he discovers that his keys and luggage have been stolen from his door. Beau calls his mother to explain the situation, but she dismisses him.

Beau takes his medication, but panics when he discovers there's a water outage. On his way to a convenience store across the street, he evades a group of deranged homeless people who break into his apartment and lock him out. After sleeping on scaffolding outside the building, Beau returns to his vandalized apartment the next morning. He attempts to call his mother, only to have it answered by a UPS driver who tells him that her head has been crushed as a result of a fallen chandelier. In a state of shock, he tries to take a bath, only to discover an intruder hiding in the ceiling. The intruder falls and Beau, terrified, runs naked out of his apartment and into the street. After a brief confrontation with a police officer, Beau is hit by a food truck.

Beau wakes up two days later in the house of a married couple, Grace and Roger. They care for an unstable veteran named Jeeves, who was their son's army comrade before he was killed in action. The couple has an angsty teenage daughter named Toni, who instantly despises Beau. Later, Beau calls Mona's attorney, Dr. Cohen, who chastises him and informs Beau that despite the Jewish custom to lay the body to rest as soon as possible, her last wish was not to be buried until he was present. Roger promises to take Beau to his mother's estate as soon as possible but insists Beau rest until he is healed. On the day of Beau's initial release, Roger is forced to postpone due to a sudden surgery. Throughout Beau's stay in their home, Grace warns Beau not to "incriminate" himself and that he is under surveillance. On the day of Beau's new release, Toni takes him to her brother's old room and attempts to force him to paint the walls in different colors. When he refuses, she ruthlessly berates Beau before drinking a can of paint, deliberately committing suicide. Grace walks in on Beau standing over Toni's body and violently blames him for her death. As Beau flees into the woods, Grace sends Jeeves after him.

Lost in the woods, Beau comes upon a group of traveling theatre actors named "The Orphans of the Forest.” He is invited to their rehearsal and becomes entranced by the play, imagining himself as the protagonist, who spends his entire life looking for his family after they’re separated by a flood. A man approaches Beau and informs him that he knew his father who is still alive. The troupe is ambushed by Jeeves, where he slaughters several actors in the process; Beau flees deeper into the woods.

Beau hitchhikes the rest of his way to the estate, only to find that he had just missed his mother's funeral. He naps on the couch and wakes up to the sound of a woman entering the house, late for the service. He realizes it is Elaine and they reconnect. They make their way to Mona's bedroom and have sex. Beau is terrified that he's going to die upon climaxing but is relieved when he survives. However, Elaine has died mid-climax, her body frozen stiff. Mona then appears from the shadows and reveals that she was not only still alive but watching the whole time. She shames Beau and reveals that his therapist works for her, having shared their sessions with her for years. He demands to know the truth about his father, and she takes him to the attic, where Beau sees a version of himself, decrepit and shackled in chains, and to his horror that his father is actually a giant penis-shaped monster. At that moment, Jeeves breaks into the house and is killed by the penis monster. After further humiliation from his mother, in which Mona declares that she hates him, an enraged Beau strangles her.

In shock, Beau leaves the estate and finds a motorboat on a beach, commandeering it into the sea. After entering a cave, the boat's motor begins to stall and he suddenly finds himself in a crowded arena, where he's put on trial by a still-alive Mona and Dr. Cohen acting as a prosecutors on a podium. On a jumbotron, they show footage of every instance of Beau's slighting his mother, including falsely accusing Beau of refusing Roger's offer of returning home on the day it was initially offered. A cheap defense attorney advocates for Beau, but is soon murdered by one of Mona's henchmen. Beau tries to fend for himself but discovers that his feet are now glued to the boat. He attempts to appeal to his mother, but when she does not respond, he finally accepts his fate. The boat's motor explodes, capsizing the boat and drowning Beau. The credits silently roll as the crowd leaves the arena with Dr. Cohen and Mona, who sobs uncontrollably.

The film had been in development by Ari Aster for some time, with a 2011 short film entitled Beau, that would later serve as the basis for a sequence in the feature film, and a 2014 draft of the script that circulated on the internet.[9] Aster has described the film in many ways, including initially as a "nightmare comedy,"[10], "a Jewish Lord of the Rings, but [Beau's] just going to his mom’s house," and as "if you pumped a 10-year-old full of Zoloft, and [had] him get your groceries."[11]

In February 2021, A24 announced the film, then titled Disappointment Blvd., with Joaquin Phoenix on board to star in the leading role.[12] The film's ensemble cast was announced in June and July.[13][14] Co-star Stephen McKinley Henderson described Aster and Phoenix as "so simpatico ... their way of working together was like they were really old friends. They could get upset and make up in the span of seconds, it seemed. But the work was always the better for it."[15] During a Q&A session on April 1, 2023 with actress Emma Stone, Aster recounted an incident in which, during the shooting of a “very intense” scene involving Phoenix's co-star Patti LuPone, Phoenix suddenly collapsed and lost consciousness as a result of the physical intensity of his stunts, which included breaking through glass. Initially annoyed because "it was a really good take", Aster realized it was serious as "[Phoenix] was letting people touch him and people were tending to him and he was allowing it".[16]

Principal photography began on June 28, 2021, and concluded that October.[17][18] The film was shot in Downtown Montreal, and Saint-Bruno-de-Montarville, an off-island suburb of Montreal in Quebec, with cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski and production designer Fiona Crombie.[19][18] Animation for the film was done by Cristobal León & Joaquín Cociña, who were personally chosen by Aster for their work on the 2018 stop-motion film The Wolf House.[20] With a budget of $35 million, Beau Is Afraid is A24's most expensive film.[2]

Beau Is Afraid was released theatrically in the United States by A24 on April 21, 2023,[21] following a delay from its original 2022 schedule.[22] The film had its premiere with a Q&A moderated by Emma Stone at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Brooklyn, New York as part of an April Fools' Day event, as the audience attending was originally scheduled to watch the director's cut of Aster's Midsommar (2019).[23]

• Official website
• Beau Is Afraid at IMDb