“One thing that excites me about ‘Beau’ is that there are certain things that I buried in that film that still haven’t been talked about, and I was kind of disappointed by the way people were maybe engaging with the film on first release because it was very verdict based like, ‘Well, it doesn’t all work.’ It’s like, ‘Well, wait, what doesn’t work?’” he continued. “The film is an experiment in so many ways. Even what he finds up in that attic is a very specific provocation. I’m deliberately blowing up the whole film. People talked about it as a letdown when clearly — yeah, that’s the joke! Interpret this, right?”
“Beau Is Afraid” stars Joaquin Phoenix as an anxiety-raddled loner who sets out on a bizarre odyssey home to see his mother (Patti Lupone). Aster said many clues were put into the background of the film that “tell a whole other story that nobody has brought to me yet,” which somewhat reinforces the film’s inability to register with an audience.
“That’s frustrating because you take the time to put them there and you wonder who’s going to catch them,” Aster told Vanity Fair. “When you make a film like this, it feels in some ways like you’re just pulling yourself inside out. With this film especially as it came out, I felt very protective of it. I’ve said this before, but it’s absolutely my favorite of my own films and I think the furthest I’ve been able to go.”
