Contains Spoilers for "Beau is Afraid"

"Beau is Afraid" is one of the most daring and original films to come out in recent years. Written and directed by horror maestro Ari Aster (of "Hereditary" and "Midsommar" fame), it follows its titular character (Joaquin Phoenix), a neurotic middle-aged man, on his journey to his mother Mona's (Patti LuPone) funeral. Doesn't sound too shocking, right?

What could've been a thoughtful yet boring drama in the hands of any other filmmaker is an outlandish trip into the darkest parts of the human psyche. Nightmares, fears, childhood traumas, and more are given form as Beau is launched into one horrendous situation after another, like an existential pinball. It made for a singular theater experience for me, as nearly everyone in the audience made their emotions known. We screamed. We laughed. We cried. And sometimes, we did all three at once. The viewer to my right constantly yelled, "What the f***?!" throughout the film, while the viewer to my left constantly yelled, "Why is this movie doing this to us?!" That should give you some idea of just how shocking this movie is.

Beau's Birth

The film begins with a bizarre scene filled with largely unidentifiable sounds and images. For those of you squeamish about up-close biology or failed sex ed, ignore the rest of this paragraph. We hear squishy noises and see flashes of wet pink flesh. "What is this?" I asked myself as my appetite for another Sour Patch Kid waned. "Is this the inside of a frog being dissected in a middle school class from the perspective of its kidney?" Ha. If only. After some more unsettling squirming, the bizarre scene reaches its climax with a doctor spanking a newborn baby's bottom, and then we see the title card.

I can't think of many movies that treat their audiences to a POV shot of a baby exiting its mother's birth canal. It's an audacious move on Ari Aster's part but necessary. As we see throughout the rest of the film, Beau's haunted by the agony of his turbulent childhood, putting him in a state of constant anxiety as an adult. Most of us probably don't remember our births, but because of Beau's disposition, he never got over the experience of being ripped from the comfortable darkness of his mom's womb and shoved into the glaring uncertainty of a hostile world. The opening scene, as gross as it is, sets the stage for the story of a man trying to stay afloat in the tempestuous waters of life.

The Homeless Make Themselves At Home

Beau's therapist prescribes him anxiety medication with urgent instructions to take it with water. The next day, Beau suffers a panic attack when his luggage and apartment key are stolen. He swallows one of the prescription pills but discovers that the water has been cut off. He props the door open to his building with a rolled-up magazine, then runs across the street to the market to buy water. However, a mob of transients immediately flood into the building and Beau's apartment, removing the magazine holding open the door. Locked out, Beau watches in horror as they trash his place like rock stars in a Hyatt.

This was one of the most laugh-out-loud moments in the film, perfectly illustrating just how much Beau's world hates him. The mob seemingly exists solely to engage in freakish behavior at the intersection outside Beau's home, comprising a sort of psycho street circus that never stops performing. And by "performing," I mean "giving Beau a reason to fear every moment of his existence." Of course, he has no choice but to accept the grim irony that is his fate. As soon as he gets into his obliterated apartment, the water turns back on in the building. Every day is Beau's worst day ever.

Beau's Mom Dies

After the homeless people leave Beau's apartment looking like it was ravaged by a Category 5 hurricane, he calls his mother. However, an unidentified man answers her phone, much to his surprise. After a confusing exchange, the man says that he's a postal worker who was at Mona's house to deliver a package. Her door was slightly ajar, so he let himself in, only to discover the corpse of a woman. The postal worker asks Beau to describe Mona, but when he starts with her facial features, the postal worker asks him to describe what her body looks like. You see, Beau's mom was killed by a chandelier that fell on her head.

Aster is a master at building dread, which works wonderfully well in this darkly comedic scene. From the moment a man answers Mona's phone, we immediately know that something's wrong. The awkward banter ratchets up the suspense as we crave to know what's happened to Beau's mother. We expect her death to be something more commonplace, like a heart attack or a car accident, not the slapstick accident we're presented with. While Mona's death is offscreen, it does nothing to undermine the almost "Looney Tunes"-esque style of her demise. Its unseen nature only exaggerates it, as we're forced to use our imaginations to conjure up the ludicrous scenario.

Beau's Bad Bath

Beau's visit to his mother's home has been canceled, his apartment is in shambles, and there's a poisonous spider on the loose in his building. On top of all of that, Beau just learned that his mother suffered a death befitting Wile E. Coyote. But hey, at least his water's back on. To settle his nerves, Beau gets into a bath. He tries to relax, but drops of water land on his face from above. When Beau looks up, he discovers a homeless man nervously huddled in the ceiling space, sweat dripping down his face. The aforementioned spider crawls on the man's face and he loses his grip, landing directly on a hapless Beau.

We're never told why a member of the hobo coterie that thrashed Beau's home decided to hang out. We're also left in the dark about why he decided to practice for his "Spider-Man" audition in Beau's bathroom. But, just like the lead-up to the reveal of Mona's surprising death, this scene is a fantastic piece of misdirection from Aster. Water is a recurring motif throughout "Beau is Afraid," so when drops land on Beau's face from above, we're led to believe that his troubles are compounded by yet another inconvenience, like a leaky pipe, only to be hit with an even more startling appearance. Aster clearly enjoys conceiving sadistic new ways to make Beau's life a living hell.

Beau's Naked Accident

Shocked by an uninvited vagrant making a crash landing on him in the bath, Beau dashes out of his apartment without putting on his clothes. He runs into the street naked, not that anyone would notice. The neighborhood has been plagued by a naked man stabbing people "in the neck and the guts," according to a news reporter. Of course, Beau bumps into a cop who immediately brandishes his gun and tells him to drop his weapon — a figurine he intended to give his mother. When Beau backs into the street, he's struck by a van and bounced into a garbage pile.

Barely 24 hours have elapsed since Beau visited his therapist, proving just how terrible and hilarious this world is. If this is Beau's existence, can we really blame him for being so afraid? On the one hand, we feel sorry for him for all of the bad luck he suffers, but on the other hand, we can't help but chuckle at him for the same reason. Only Ari Aster can fuse nudity, violence, and irony into a beautiful, unreal ménage à trois like this without coming off as cheap or exploitative. Joaquin Phoenix deserves all the kudos in the world for fully committing to this scene.

Toni's Colorful Death

Luckily for Beau, he was struck by a van driven by a woman, Grace (Amy Ryan), whose husband, Roger (Nathan Lane), is a doctor. They bring him home to recuperate and put him up in their teenage daughter Toni's (Kylie Rogers) room, but she's not happy about it and does everything she can to torture him. This comes to a head when she pressures him to join her in splashing paint all over her deceased brother's room to rebel against her parents. Beau refuses to participate, so she opens a paint can and chugs the stuff like a frat boy in a drinking contest. He tries to stop Toni, but she's dead by the time Grace bursts into the room and attempts to resuscitate her.

Toni's exaggerated outbursts and constant bullying of the middle-aged Beau are hilarious recurring gags. However, we get the rug pulled out from under us when their relationship ends with her over-the-top death. There's nothing funny about suicide, but the segue from Toni's melodramatic antics to her acrylic demise is so seamless that we find ourselves in a bizarre state where comedy and tragedy are bosom buddies. The scene's contrasting emotions are amped up further when Grace sees her daughter's pale, lifeless body — an extremely disturbing sight — and scares off Beau with her overwrought accusations, paint dripping from her mouth after giving her daughter mouth-to-mouth. Poor Beau. He can't even recover from his wounds without being implicated in a teenage girl's death.

If you or anyone you know is having suicidal thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline​ by dialing 988 or by calling 1-800-273-TALK (8255)​.

Beau's Father's Death

On the run after being blamed for Toni's death, Beau stumbles into the company of an itinerant theater troupe called "The Orphans of the Forest," who put on a performance that mirrors much of his life. Reality and fantasy merge, and Beau imagines himself as the protagonist of the play, which sees him grow old and reconnect with his three adult sons. The boys ask Beau about their grandparents. He tells them his mother died recently, and his father died before he was born. But his father's death was no ordinary one. He died while making love to Mona — at the moment of Beau's conception.

We know that Beau's reunion with his boys isn't real, but it's still a touching scene, as it's one of the few times he smiles. However, Beau can't have nice things, even in his own imagination. The warmth of reconnecting with his family is utterly ruined by our learning that his dad had a death as bizarre as his mom's. True, there are worse ways to die than by having sex with your wife, but it's still an odd thing to bring up during such a tearful homecoming. That's all part of Aster's offbeat artistry, though. Every funny scene must end with a deadly serious narrative twist, and every sentimental scene must end with an insane revelation. Just like Beau, we're never allowed a moment of comfort.

Theater Of Pain

As Beau's watching the play put on by "The Orphans of the Forest," he encounters an elderly man who claims to have known his father. Beau asks him for more information, but he gives only vague answers, leading Beau to wonder if the old man's his father. However, the performance is interrupted by the explosive arrival of Jeeves (Denis Ménochet), the mentally unstable war veteran Grace and Roger send to avenge Toni's death. Jeeves kills the old man, who may or may not have been Beau's father, and fires indiscriminately into the audience and performers before accidentally shooting himself in the shoulder.

The theater troupe sequence is the most whimsical in the film as well as one of the most wholesome. This group of misfits welcomes Beau with open arms, and they treat him to a play that seems to give him (and, by extension, us) some clarity about his life's purpose. And just when he meets someone with a connection to his past, whatever hope dangling in front of him is ruthlessly stripped away by a madman. There's no subtlety or grace in this jarring tonal shift. It's yet another brutal reminder that life's unforgiving arithmetic will never leave Beau alone.

A Pact Tragically Fulfilled

After napping on his mother's couch, Beau's awakened by a woman who's come to pay her respects. He soon realizes that the woman is Elaine (Parker Posey), the girl he fell in love with as a teenager and with whom he'd entered a pact to wait until they were older to have sex. They embrace and fulfill their pact in Beau's mom's bed. However, Beau remembers how his father died. Luckily, he survives the experience, but Elaine doesn't. Rigor mortis quickly sets in, and she ends up a rigid naked corpse.

Beau's relationship with Elaine is odd. Her dominant personality is in stark contrast to his timid demeanor, and she doesn't see him as her one true love. Still, it's a little sweet seeing these two reconnect after decades apart, even if their sex scene is awkward. There's a suspenseful buildup as we get nearer to finding out if Beau will meet the same fate as his father, only for us to be relieved when we learn it was merely a story his mother told him when he was a child. However, Elaine's fate is the real shocker. It's never fully explained why she dies. Then again, this is a movie in which someone's killed by a chandelier.

Beau's Mom Returns

Remember when we thought Mona was killed by a chandelier? It turns out that she hired her assistant, Penelope (Hayley Squires), to get killed in her stead. Of course, she reveals this to Beau after watching him have sex with Elaine in her bed. This was all part of Mona's plan, which also includes conspiring with her son's therapist. Beau's therapist secretly recorded all of their sessions together for years and shared them with Mona so she could find out what he really thinks of her. Oh, and the therapist arrives to do little more than substantiate her claims and smile cheerfully throughout the tense mother-and-son showdown.

Beau's mom's return is surprising in so many ways. Besides the fact that she feels the need to spy on her son making love with Elaine in her bed, her decision to go to such lengths to learn how he'd respond to her passing leaves us with more questions than answers. Did she mastermind the twisted events Beau endured on his way to her funeral? How long had she been planning this? What are her plans for after their confrontation? Leave it to Ari Aster to explore the relationship between sons and mothers in the most audacious yet cryptic way ever.

Don't Go Into The Attic!

During Beau's confrontation with his mother, she reveals her whole plan and debases him for the way he treated her. Beau begs to learn what really happened to his father. She takes him to the attic that he's dreamt about and tells him that's where he'll find answers. Beau trudges into the dark attic with a flashlight and discovers that he has a secret twin brother living there. But the horrific revelations keep coming as Beau sees a giant monster in the shape of a penis. Jeeves explodes into the attic and attacks the creature but is swiftly killed by it. Then, Beau's mother delivers the most disturbing truth of all: The penis monster is his father.

The more shocking the scenes in this movie, the more puzzling they are. If the penis monster is Beau's real father, then who was the old man he met during the performance in the woods? Perhaps he did know Beau's father decades earlier, but in what capacity? Maybe the old man was nobody at all and simply another one of the zany characters who populated Beau's quest. That aside, it's unclear why Mona keeps Beau's secret brother and father locked up in her attic. However, this scene comes the closest to horror, opening up all kinds of perverse implications of Mona's grand scheme.

Trial By Water

Beau strangles his mother and leaves her property. He then finds a boat on a beach and takes it out into the ocean, embarking on another stylized journey to an unknown destination. After going into a cave, Beau finds himself in an arena surrounded by spectators. Mona appears — alive again — with her lawyer, who explains that Beau's entire life has been filmed. Footage of Beau's mistreatment of his mother is shown on a jumbotron while all he can do is plead for mercy. Beau is ultimately found guilty, and he's killed when his boat unexpectedly explodes. The boat's wreckage floats on the water as the audience quietly leaves the venue.

Ari Aster leaves the most shocking (and confusing) moment for the end. It's a truly twisted take on "The Truman Show," but it doesn't wrap up the film as neatly as I'd like. Still, I don't believe Aster wrote this ending for no good reason. If anything, its grandiose and unpredictable nature only makes me want to give "Beau is Afraid" multiple viewings to look for clues about what the ending really means. This final scene is also shocking in its execution. It's such a frenetic film, filled with so much going on at any given moment, that the silence that wraps it up is shattering. Is"Beau is Afraid" a comment on life's unpredictability or a capricious creative gesture? You decide.

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