SPOILER WARNING: The following article offers almost all the most important details of handsome is scaredSo unless you’ve been on this confusing journey, please act like our main character and do your best to be safe.
Personally, I am convinced that there is no more unique, ambitious and insane (a term I use admirably here) voice in horror cinema working today than Ari Aster. The director made his feature film debut with a thriller that was quickly regarded by many as one of the best horror films ever made in 2018. Hereditarywhich would follow up just a year later with the almost equally haunting mid summer. However, despite his latest feature film, handsome is scaredit’s certainly creepy enough to qualify as a “horror film,” calling it harmful.
The film is many things: a commentary on existential horror taken to near-apocalyptic proportions, a surreal fantasy adventure on par with The Wizard of Oz in terms of visual range, a three-hour psychedelic panic attack, etc. At its core, however, is the story of a deeply neurotic middle-aged hypochondriac (Oscar winner Joaquin Phoenix in one of his most challenging performances to date) and his relentless, absurdly surreal, ongoing struggle to get to his mother. Have you finally reached your destination? And our damaged hero? And what does all this mean? Read on as we try to explain the handsome is scared end in the best possible way, starting with a basic breakdown of the final act.
What happens at the end of Beau Afraid?
When Beau Wassermann finally arrives at his destination, the funeral of his extravagantly wealthy mother, Mona (played in her youth by Zoe Lister-Jones), is over, but he discovers he’s not the only late guest when “He shows up.” the woman he fell in love with as a teenager, Elaine Bray (played here by Parker Posey and in flashbacks by Julia Antonelli).The reunited couple go up to Mona’s bedroom to make love to the tune of “Aways Be My Baby” by Mariah Carey and, meanwhile, Beau fears that this sexual encounter (his first) will kill him, just as his father died around the time of his conception, as his mother claimed.However, it is Elaine who dies in the end, at which point Beau discovers that his mother (Tony winner Patti LuPone) is alive and saw everything.
The ensuing conversation between fractured mother and son could best be described as an onslaught of cold, unsympathetic comments towards Beau, heightened by a series of heartbreaking revelations. For starters, like most of the characters Beau met on her journey, her therapist (Stephen McKinley Henderson) is an employee of Mona’s, and her sessions were simply her way of controlling him. Then she discovers that a recurring dream in which her mother locks a boy in her attic is actually a memory of the last time she saw her brother and there she also hides her real living father: a monster giant in the shape of a penis. The most devastating revelation, however, is Mona’s deep and long-held hatred for her child, forcing Beau to choke her mother to death.
Traumatized by her actions, Beau runs away from home and finds a speedboat that takes him out to water and unknowingly straight to a stadium where his mother (a master at faking her own death, it seems) is on trial for his selfishness. , acts of treason against his. Unfairly unable to defend himself against the video evidence that swings key moments in the film in his favor, Beau has no choice but to ruminate wistfully on his dark existence before succumbing to the noisy, malfunctioning engine as it reaches the point of explosion.
The final act (and the entire film) is an epic meditation on guilt.
Throughout Aster’s filmography thus far (including her short films), there are themes of dysfunctional relationships and psychological manipulation. Hereditary chronicles the destruction of a family in the wake of tragedy, but it’s revealed it’s all part of planning a demon cult, and mid summer (which Aster based on his experience with a breakup) sees Dani (Florence Pugh) and Chrisitian’s (Jack Reynor) one-sided relationship reach its tumultuous climax when they and their friends insidiously fall into a deadly cult. handsome is scared is perhaps the strongest example of these themes in an Aster film, but the main differentiator is the inclusion of guilt as a major factor.
As we learn, Mona treats Beau like her puppet from the start, ruling every aspect of his life, from his decrepit building, which he owns, to the people he interacts with, whom he employs with careful control. . To make matters worse, she takes every opportunity she can to subtly (at least initially) make him feel guilty for simply existing, with the lie that her project killed her father. project of his neuroses. This prevents him from knowing love and keeps him in constant fear of death, the former being a potential cause of the latter from his point of view.
Beau doesn’t even get a chance to plead his case, equipped only with a lawyer whose deliberate lack of a microphone makes it nearly impossible for him to hear (symbolizing the frustrations of being silenced) and who is publicly assassinated before he can complete his case. his defense. Also, as Aster reveals in an interview with indiewire, Beau’s ruthless trial has a vaguely personal meaning to him. He says his intention with the finale is, as we clearly see Mona enjoying her son’s suffering, to put the audience in her place, with Beau standing in for Aster, as Mona is a metaphorical reflection of the audience’s judgement. . or at least the art he created. This seems to explain why the setting of the last act almost looks like a cinema.
What’s real and what’s fantastic about Beau Is Afraid?
Similar to another recent experimental thriller, skinarink, handsome is scared it often feels like a nightmare transferred directly to celluloid due to its eerie atmosphere and bizarre imagery. Sometimes the question arises whether what is happening is really happening or if it is all in Beau’s head.
Honestly, I think it could be argued that the whole movie is really… actually bad dream because everything we see is very unlikely to happen in reality (Beau’s monstrous and phallic father is the most obvious example). However, I believe the film is set in a different reality than ours that allows for otherworldly phenomena to exist.
However, if there’s one moment that’s unmistakably a figment of Beau’s imagination, it’s when the coin he stumbles upon in the middle of the film turns out to be a rather favorable prediction of his future. Were it not for its brightly colored landscape, enlivened by beautifully grainy animation and theatrical artificial backdrops, what automatically tells the viewer that this is a fantasy is the vision of Beau with a woman, children and all semblances of hope. .
I hope this breakdown has satisfied any curiosity or confusion you may have felt regarding the handsome is scared END. However, if you still know nothing about the penis monster, I’m afraid we’re in the same boat.
Source: Cinemablend
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