Well. Where to start? Damned if I know. Let’s return to this… From my Nope review; “So I have a random rule that’s mostly just for my own wariness, it’s a stupid little rule of three sort of thing. After Us I had people come to me saying Peele was the very best in horror right now, just like Damian Chazelle following his first two major films, just like so many other up and coming auteurs. Just like Robert Eggers. Each time I would warily say, “wait till the rule of three”. However it is such a great joy that these auteurs have repeatedly now pulled it off and delivered their brilliant third films. Only Ari Aster and Greta Gerwig in my mind remain this year to see if they can pull off the triple bill. The long and short of what I’m trying to get at is that sometimes we idolise these auteurs as auteurs whilst they are still in my eyes ‘brilliant debut directors’, it’s a scientific principle at the end of the day – two is a coincidence, three is a pattern” Well Aster has fortunately succeeded and achieved a pattern with Beau is Afraid. But not exactly in the fullest of recommendations that one could offer his first two film , no matter how slow-burn to a modern audience they may be.
On its surface it should be everything I love and on the surface it is a very lovable film. Perhaps not to the average viewer, but certainly to me. When this film is on top form, which in the hands of such a skilled craftsman as Aster, it so very often is on top form, it really is some of the best film made in this style. That style is not something that comes about very often either, especially not this mainstream – and I do think budget wise, cast wise and directorial pedigree and marketing wise we can refer to this as mainstream. This is a surrealist darkly comic nightmare comedy about one man’s journey back to his mother’s house, it is as Aster has so often referred to it in the press: “Lord of the Rings for Jewish Men”. Now the film is every bit as bold, unrelenting and expansive as such descriptions would make you think the final product would be. But it is a journey and overall the journey is just frankly uneven. Every part of this episodic tale is in itself very well made, as a matter of fact the film excels in all matters of direction, cinematography, each level of design, performance and writing – but there is just an overall structural issue at its core that it seemingly cannot deal with. The pace fluctuates, the stressful anxiety of the first hour which is such great painful stressful entertainment is lost by the time the second hour begins and the overall arc of the film lacks a cohesion that it so severely needs. But now two days later I am still thinking and mulling over so many elements and wanting desperately to watch the film again, even if at times it felt desperately overlong and with very little satisfying resolution or payoff. The highs are just so very, very high in so many ways.
Performance wise,
again, the film is sublime. In so many ways the film is sublime as aforementioned,
it’s just an overall feel that the film as a cohesive piece is slipping through
Aster’s normally so incredibly deft hands. Joaquin Phoenix as the titular Beau
is the perfect off-kilter pathetic character surrogate for the tale Aster is
unfolding, he is equal parts sad-sack, vulnerable and completely emotionally
crippled. It’s a vivid and very well performed figure of desperation and
emotional violence often zoned entirely inwards. For me the strongest of the
films segments was certainly it’s second chapter featuring Beau trapped inside the
suburban home of Nathan Lane and Amy Ryan, with Kylie Rogers and Denis Menochet
also in the mix – all in all this is when for me personally the dark comedy and
anxiety were both at their most effective and overall the set pieces were at
their absolute best construction and delivery. All involved in this sequence
were so perfectly off-balance in their delivery of sweetness, awkwardness and
just being that little bit off. If the whole film maintained the quality of
this first hour and this extended sequence in particular, then we would be
dealing with a far more positive review. But we are not. Also performance wise
I cannot mask my devotion and absolute adoration of the god Patti LuPone, whom here
is given an awful lot to do to play into her greatest performative strengths. LuPone
is a joyous burst of horrid energy that the film needs as it escapes the sluggish
nature of its trough middle and meta textually casting an actress of such
quality as LuPone to capture the shadow the character must cast and the expectation
she must garner, the task is made very easy indeed and when she does finally
arrive, she most certainly delivers. Shame the film overall fails to have such overall
impact itself.
Aster has not faltered at the three film line that loomed, however this is not the 10/10 that his previous films have been. However it’s also not a great failure, by no means at all. Currently I’m at 8/10. I just can’t lie that at times the film felt overly long and arduous, I also can’t lie that that was not clearly by design. It feels like the old Adam from ‘YourMovieSucks.com’ argument that ‘a film can be perfect, even if you don’t like it’. This feels like that case, except I did like it, at times I even loved it. Truly loved it. When people refer to this film as divisive they are talking about people either fully loving or hating it, but there’s not too much discussion about my end; divisiveness within the sole audience member. Now I never hated it, but my love was far from constant… Is this the worst and most convoluted summary I’ve ever written? I think so.
P.S. I remember when the news of A24 wanting Aster to cut down his 3hr 40min cut of this film were released and I was the one arguing for them to just release the full directors cut. Afterall the Midsommar directors cut was better. I feel… I feel the right decision was made in this case, and even then it feels a touch overlong and not exactly by design, beyond the simple argument that the film should feel like a journey. Well yes Ari Aster, it certainly does feel like a journey.
SPOLIER P.S. Well. When Ari Aster did an interview for the Criterion release of Defending Your Life I was really quite taken aback. I have never rushed home to re-watch supplemental material in my entire life. Were any of my questions answered? Not especially. Have I been ruminating? Yes.
- - Thomas Carruthers
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