Beau is Afraid starts at the literal beginning. Our title character emerges from the womb, but just like the rest of Ari Aster’s new disorienting and upsetting film, this is no conventional birthing scene. The film’s first black frame fades into a translucent pinkish-red before suddenly emerging into a sterile-white room full of giant masked men and women rushing to resuscitate the oddly quiet baby whose POV we’ve shockingly become privy to. This is how deeply we’re embedded in the mindset of Beau Wassermann (Joaquin Phoenix), a perpetually anxious doormat of a man who embarks on a strange epic journey.
