In case you haven't heard of it yet, Beau Is Afraid is the latest film from writer-director and A24 horror darling Ari Aster. The film stars Joaquin Phoenix as Beau Wasserman, a paranoid man who embarks on a guilt-ridden journey to get home to his overbearing mother, Mona (played magnificently by Broadway legend Patti LuPone).
Unlike Aster's previous films, Hereditary and Midsommar, Beau Is Afraid is less modern horror and more dark comedy (with a whopping runtime of almost three hours!!!). However, it still deals with a lot of trauma-based shocks. The film is a truly WILD ride, and here are some interesting details and facts about it:
Note: Mild spoilers ahead.
1. Water plays a vital role in the movie, both in plot and visual details — presumably a nod to the influence of Homer's Odyssey on the film.
2. After Beau leaves his therapist's office, there are A LOT of weird things that go on in the background that actually foreshadow parts of Beau's journey.
3. The UPS guy, whose face we never see, is actually played by none other than Bill Hader.
4. Once you know what the "MW" branding stands for, you'll realize HOW MUCH you saw that logo throughout the film (literally everywhere).
5. In the photo mosaic of Mona, you'll note that it is made up of employee photos. And this includes people we've seen, like Roger (Nathan Lane).
6. Although Phoenix has been described in the past as a Method actor, according to costar Amy Ryan (who plays Grace), that was not the case at all.
7. However, Phoenix did perform almost all of his own stunts — jumping through glass, falling out of the attic, and tumbling around violently in a bathtub for a full day with a stunt performer, for example.
8. Aster actually came up with the idea for Beau Is Afraid nearly a decade ago, before his breakout feature, Hereditary.
9. In fact, Aster made a short film called Beau back in 2011.
10. According to Aster, the first draft of Beau Is Afraid was actually more arch and cartoonish and less emotional.
11. If you're wondering what the "central idea" of the movie is, according to Aster, it is to convey life through the eyes of a protagonist whose development has been arrested.
12. I already mentioned The Odyssey as being a major influence on the film, but Aster also cited Jorge Luis Borges, Virgil, Franz Kafka, Laurence Sterne, Miguel de Cervantes, and Tennessee Williams as others.
13. In Aster's previous films, Hereditary and Midsommar, the heroes are running away from horrible family traumas that have effectively left them "motherless." However, according to the filmmakers, it's kind of the opposite in this film: "Beau has more mother than anyone could know what to do with."
14. Partway through the film, there's a very dreamlike sequence during the play in the forest. If you're wondering what that's all about, according to Aster, "Under hypnosis, he enters the play and imagines what might happen if he were a more active agent in his own life."
15. Although it takes place in a fictional city and area, Beau Is Afraid was filmed in Montreal.
16. And Aster very much had a hand in all of the details that went into the production design.
17. The signs and surfaces in the opening were created from scratch, including store facades, crude hallway graffiti, movie posters advertising fictional films, and food packaging.
18. Finally, in case you were curious (because I was!), the homes in the movie weren't sets, they were real houses that were scouted in Montreal. Yup, Mona's IMPRESSIVE glass home is a real place!
Cool stuff.
Note: Some of these facts were sourced from the film's official production notes.
Beau Is Afraid opens in New York and Los Angeles on April 14 and nationwide April 21, and you can watch the trailer for it below:
