Unable to tell facts from fiction and dreams from reality, Beau is plagued with dreadful, suspicious, and strange occurrences with mysterious motives. Can he endure these countless attacks and suffering? Is someone doing that to him or is he doing that to himself? Is the man a victim or simply likes to play one? The film leaves you with many questions and possibilities. Oscillating between an overbearing mother, penis monster, suicidal nutcases, decaying corpses, nude escapes, crackheads and criminals, the film borders on insanity and absurd. However, if it’s not outrageously crazy, confounding and shockingly bizarre, serving you ample ‘what the f***’ moments, it’s not Ari Aster. The writer-director is one of the finest new-age talents to have revolutionised the horror genre with his previous two critically acclaimed films ‘Hereditary’ and ‘Midsommar’. His ability to twist tragedy and trauma or guilt and grief into terror is remarkable. His stories are bereft of the usual jump scares or tropes deemed necessary for the genre. The man is a devout rule breaker and boundary pusher that prepares you to read into his absurd universe rooted in paranoia and troubled characters. ‘Beau Is Afraid’ is cut from the same cloth but exceeds your threshold of crazy. With a runtime of a massive 3 hours, the tedious psychological drama gets overindulgent as it subconsciously unfolds in 3 tracks. Whether his suffering is real or imaginary, a memory or a bad dream is the puzzle you try to decode. The underlying tragicomedy, ‘Beau is afraid to confront his controlling mother’ forms the climax and it falls into place a bit too late. The excruciating long wait is not as rewarding despite Joaquin Phoenix’s unsettling performance. The actor becomes one with his character’s terrifying journey but feels overburdened by that responsibility with no defined plot in play. Ari Aster amplifies the madness in his latest confined space thriller, but it is way too long, ambitious and exhausting.Read more