Beau is Afraid

Front Row at the Movies by Shirrel Rhoades

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Joaquin Phoenix may be typecasting himself. By eschewing “normal” roles, his penchant for wonky characters is becoming a pattern.

Sure, he was nominated for an Academy Award for playing Johnny Cash in the biopic “Walk the Line.” But consider many of his other choices:

• “Joker,” a lunatic comic book villain that got him an Oscar.
• “You Were Never Really Here,” where he played a traumatized Gulf War veteran who tracks down missing girls for a living.
• “The Master,” where he gave us an itinerant World War II veteran who is lulled into a cult.
• “Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot,” where he portrayed an alcoholic quadriplegic newspaper cartoonist.
• Or “I’m Still Here,” a mockumentary that had him convincing the world that he was dropping out of acting to become a mumbling rapper. Many people believed that Phoenix was having a mental breakdown after his infamous appearance on “The Late Show With David Letterman.”

Many worried his erratic behavior was a sign he was stuck in a downward spiral, and headed down the same self-destructive path that took the life of his older brother, River Phoenix.

However, Phoenix claims there’s no real methodology to the roles he chooses. He says he’s merely drawn to complex characters.

Even so, he’s known for his intensity and darkness on-screen. Director James Gray who worked with Phoenix in four feature films, says that Phoenix is very different off-screen. “He’s actually very tender and sweet and sensitive. It’s almost as if he channels his intensity into the characters. Like the work is an outlet for his darker side.”

Typecasting be damned, his latest film role follows the same pattern.

In “Beau is Afraid,” he stars as the titular Beau Wassermann, “a mild-mannered but paranoia-ridden man who embarks on a surreal odyssey to his hometown for his mother’s funeral.”

In this black comedy, everything goes wrong. Beau’s therapist over-medicates him, vandals trash his apartment, his luggage is stolen, he’s chased by an assassin, he’s late for his mother’s funeral … and nothing is as it appears to be.

“It’s an anxiety-induced, trippy, epic nightmare comedy,” said one of the cast members.

Written, directed, and co-produced by Ari Aster (“Midsommar”), “Beau Is Afraid” has been described as a “decades-spanning surrealist horror film set in an alternate present.”

Joining Joaquin Phoenix in this nightmarish journey are such stalwart co-stars as Patti LuPone, Nathan Lane, Parker Posey, Denis Ménochet, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Michael Gandolfini, and Richard Kind.

“I still can’t quite believe I was given the resources and the freedom to make this in the way that we did,” says Ari Aster. “Credit is very much due to A24 for being stupid enough to give me that.”

He explains why he picked Joaquin Phoenix to play the off-the-charts neurotic lead in “Beau is Afraid.” “It’s when I first saw ‘I’m Still Here’ that I knew I needed to work with this guy,” Aster said. “One, it’s such a funny film, and two, that performance is really a brilliant comic performance. But it’s also because as a gesture that movie is suicidal. What he was doing with his own name there is so crazy and funny and sick. It’s like a sick thing to do. Since then, I’ve known I’ve wanted to work with him.”

Audience reactions to “Beau Is Afraid” are mixed. One moviegoer described it as “an extraordinary and deliciously demented study of a tortured soul of clumped memories.” Another called it “a bleak Oedipal nightmare that throbs like a migraine for three lost hours.”

My take? It was like ingesting psilocybin. That would explain the unsettling dreamlike movie and Phoenix’s latest dark turn.

Email Shirrel: srhoades@aol.com