Beau is Afraid

Originally published on Letterboxd on 16/05/23

Aster’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. Obviously owes much of its existence to Kaufman and the Coens, and it certainly doesn’t shy away from brazen pastiche of Twain and Roth, but the degree to which Aster projects his neuroses onto its proceedings makes this difficult to classify as anything other than his attempt to sort through what I can only assume to be homicidal feelings towards his mother. The structure here, in spite of ostensibly following that of an odyssey through a small, pathetic man’s psychosphere, is less predicated upon narrative than it is upon stringing together Jackass cutting floor remnants into something resembling a thematic arc- therefore, it’s at its best when it commits to this whilst indulging in the omnipresent paranoia, like “what if there was a rapist murderer called the Birthday Boy Stab Man outside your apartment”.

The images are as sterile as Phoenix’s performance as (surprise) yet another tormented, frail middle-aged loser with very specific hang-ups about masturbation that are somehow linked to his past. In all honesty, it’s just exceptionally difficult to muster anything more than a mere shrug at something like this- I’m glad that this is at least a marginal improvement on Aster’s last two utterly abysmal films, and it is somewhat refreshing to witness the realisation of a personal coda this unflinching in the face of cosmic nihilism, but fundamentally I think Aster is capable of little beyond shock value for the exceptionally sheltered. Not a serious artist. Parker Posey innocent. Just watch A Serious Maninstead?