Ari Aster knew he would split opinions with his latest movie Beau is Afraid, which stars Joaquin Phoenix as an anxious and paranoid man on a journey home to his overbearing mother (Patti LuPone). Part personal odyssey, part surreal horror, and part slapstick comedy, this is very different fare from what we're used to from Aster, whose previous two directorial efforts were horror hits Hereditary and Midsommar.
"I knew this film would be divisive," Aster tells the Inside Total Film podcast. "It's a film of extremes and it's a film that's really playing with structure, in a way that might even feel to people almost counterintuitive, but, for me, it felt totally intuitive. But it's also the structure of a picaresque – it's a film that changes shape.
