Sometimes plain luck steps in to finally get a dormant script filmed. Ari Aster wrote “Beau is Afraid” around 2010, but it was only the enormous success of “Joker” in 2020 that opened the way.The casting of “Joker” portrayer Joaquin Phoenix in the title role was what did the trick. Having seen both films, I found that a comparison of the two characters, and of Phoenix’ performance as both, adds a fascinating element to one’s enjoyment of Aster’s film.

Its three hours is divided into four sections, of about equal length. I saw it in IMAX, and for two of the sections, that made quite a difference. Intercut throughout the entire film, however, are flashbacks to Beau as a pre-teen with his clearly unstable mother, played by Armen Nahapetian and Zoe Lister-Jones, respectively. She is always evasive when Beau asks about the identity of his father, who supposedly died before Beau was born.

The first section of the film is the most reminiscent of “Joker”. We see, in broad IMAX canvas, that urban society has broken down into anarchy, with mobs of the homeless grabbing at anything not nailed down, and turning to aimless violence. Beau is a man of about forty-five, clumsy, slow and overweight, who lives on his wealthy mother’s meagre stipend. He has a small apartment in a building with multiple security checks which are, unfortunately, useless much of the time. We first see Beau in a therapy session, and are told that he has been released from an institution. Beau discusses his anxiety over an upcoming visit to his mother. He is clearly depressed, and barely audible. But then, suddenly, he reacts with violent anger to a suggestion from his therapist, spoken casually, that Beau would like his mother to be dead.

Later, in his apartment, he gets a call from an unidentified person, a “passerby” he calls himself, who has found the dead body of a woman in the home of Beau’s mother, and would like Beau’s permission to check the purse near the body to identify her. Could it be his mother? Beau’s reaction is terror, confusion and near total immobility. He simply hangs up and leaves the apartment. But once he does, it is invaded by mobs of the homeless. It’s quite a struggle to get them out, but he finally succeeds. But not quite. While Beau is relaxing in his bath, a man hanging from the ceiling falls on top of him. Screaming in terror, naked, Beau runs through the streets when he is struck by a car. A blackout concludes this first section off the film.

The second section tells of his recovery in the home of the couple in the car, brilliantly played by Nathan Lane and Amy Ryan. A renowned brain surgeon, Lane feels confident he can bring Beau to recovery without the need of hospitalization. Beau also learns, in a phone call from an angry attorney, that his mother’s funeral is being held up by Beau’s failure to appear. Beau then gets Lane to agree to drive him there. Complicating this, however,  are disturbing facts he learns about the doctor’s family. The couple have created a quasi religion based on their son’s death as a soldier in Iraq. Their shared guilt rules all of their life decisions, catastrophically. Also, their teen daughter rebels by threatening and humiliating Beau. Beau chooses not to wait for his lift, and escapes into the woods,  concluding the second section.

The next section is the most original and visually spectacular. To the extent the film has a theme at all, Aster chooses this part to express it, in a brilliantly imaginative way, especially in IMAX. Lost in the forest, Beau links up with a ragtag theatrical troupe. They welcome him, as if he was expected. They feed him and dress his wounds from the accident. Then he is seated in a theater with other members of the troop for a stage presentation. While the story seems just a fable on a universal theme; it slowly evolves into something specifically about Beau. Suddenly Phoenix, playing Beau, becomes the protagonist onstage while he is watching himself from the audience. The stage settings change rapidly, in Fellini-esque fashion, so that the play becomes a breathless imagining of Beau’s life leading into senile old age, his face almost hidden by a thick, white beard. Seated in the audience, Beau is totally confused, yet mesmerized. Then, suddenly, an invading group begins shooting into the crowd, and in the ensuing bloodbath, Beau escapes.

The final section begins with Beau arriving, implausibly, for the funeral at his mother’s mansion, which is where she had stipulated it be held. But Beau has missed the funeral, so he spends time alone examining mementos of her life. We see she was a business genius, a billionaire. The tone of the film darkens, as if some momentous revelation will resolve the story.

Too bad that the final section, where we want some aesthetic unity, is the least satisfying, the jaw-dropping cameo with Parker Posey notwithstanding. When at last confronted with his mother, Beau furiously demands the truth that he has been searching for his entire life: who is my father? Instead of an answer, Beau is led into a public trial of his “crimes”, reminiscent of Powell/Pressburger’s “A Matter of Life and Death”. Neither witty nor original, the film ends on a letdown.

But I wouldn’t call “Beau is Afraid” a failure. There is a load of imaginative filmmaking in the telling of this story, as we have seen in “Inheritance” and “Midsommer”, Aster’s first two films. But this one is more ambitious, and I give him points for that alone (you needn’t).

But I can’t leave it at that without bringing up Joaquin Phoenix. A thematic connection to “Joker” is unavoidable, and Aster was very aware, in fact exploitive, of this. The film emphasizes this explicitly in three ways. The first is the dystopic anarchy and violence in the opening section. What was unsettling in “Joker” about urban violence is amped up to a spectacular and frightening level. It culminates in the image of a young cop, barely out of his teens, nearly incoherent in his terror, pulling his gun on a naked and trembling Beau.

A second connection is Beau’s parentage. Because everything we see is a reflection of Beau’s own imagination – especially the surprise “survival” of his mother (a gloriously over the top Patti Lupone) – we never learn who Beau’s father was. But since the story takes place at the same time, or only a few years later than “Joker”, it could be that the two characters had the same father. We know that Joker’s mother was unreliable about his father’s identity, but Aster leaves it open that Beau could be Joker’s slightly older step-brother, with the same father but different mothers.

This intriguing possibility is even stronger because of the third way Aster suggests it: by giving long-held closeups of Phoenix’ face throughout the film. That face is really all we ever get to know about Beau’s story. And we can’t help but compare it to Joker’s/ Phoenix’ face. It’s almost like the actor is playing a dual role, with a blood connection between the two characters. If this was Aster’s intention, I couldn’t avoid it. And I think the story is strengthened by it.

Unlike Aster’s first two features, this one is less scary than silly, but is fun nevertheless. And, even with all of its nonsense, its theme is penetrating. Beau’s quest is driven by his guilt. He feels it, deeply, and is haunted by it. He just needs to know what he feels guilty about.