Beau is Afraid assessment – A self-indulgent three-hour freakout

A portly, grey-haired Joaquin Phoenix is Beau Wasserman, a friendless neurotic residing in squalor, stricken with melancholy and saddled with critical mummy points.

What will be solely loosely described as plot sends Beau from an city dystopia to the luxury pad of his overbearing mom (Patti LuPone).

Along the way in which he’s adopted by weird couple Roger (Nathan Lane) and Grace (Amy Ryan) who seem to have gone nuts whereas grieving for his or her soldier son.

Then there’s an equally baffling interlude with a theatre group who’ve arrange camp to carry out in a forest.

While watching their play, Beau is transported into its setting of fable-like villages and goes wandering.

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There are flashes of genius. An early scene the place Beau’s condo is besieged by drunks is tense, humorous and deeply unsettling.

But Aster might have minimize an hour – any hour – from this movie with out his viewers noticing.

Beau ends the movie precisely as he started it – afraid.

I used to be bored and bewildered.