If you’ve just watched Ari Aster’s new horror-comedy “Beau Is Afraid,” you probably have a few questions. Or maybe a lot of questions. Like, what was that?
As with his previous films, 2018’s “Hereditary” and 2019’s “Midsommar,” Aster packs a lot into his surreal, alternately funny and nightmarish three-hour head trip through the mind of a middle-aged man named Beau (Joaquin Phoenix), whose attempt to return home to visit his mother turns into a hellish odyssey of anxiety, guilt and shame. But he would rather not do the unpacking for you. “I made something for an audience and I hope that it is exciting and fun and makes people feel things,” Aster said in a recent interview with the Associated Press. “I just cannot speak to what those things are, and shouldn’t.”
Aster’s full intentions with “Beau Is Afraid” are known only to him — and maybe his mother and therapist. But we have each seen the film twice in an effort to crack its code, and we have some thoughts. (Needless to say, major spoilers ahead.)
