BEAU IS AFRAID : Wednesday 26th April 2023.

I saw the R18+ rated 'BEAU IS AFRAID' this week, and this American black comedy horror film is Written, Co-Produced and Directed by Ari Aster whose previous feature film making credits are 'Hereditary' with Toni Collette and Gabriel Byrne in 2018 and 'Midsommar' in 2019 with Florence Pugh and Jack Reynor. This film saw its World Premier screening in New York on 1st April, before it limited release to selected IMAX screens in LA and New York on 14th April, and before its wider release worldwide from last week. It costs US$35M to produce, has so far grossed US$4.3M and has garnered generally favourable reviews.

Beau Wasserman (Joaquin Phoenix) is the son of a famous and wealthy businesswoman, Mona (Patti LuPone). He grew up without a father, who his mother always maintained died during an orgasm on their wedding night and the first time they made love (which was also when Beau was conceived), a hereditary medical condition that effected his grandfather and great-grandfather too and which she claims was also passed down to Beau. As a teenager on a cruise trip with his mother, Beau (Armen Nahapetian) meets and falls in love with a gregarious out-spoken girl named Elaine Bray (Julia Antonelli). The two kiss and promise to remain virgins until they meet again as adults. 

Fast forward and now as an adult, Beau is paranoia ridden extremely anxious and living alone in a graffiti strewn down market apartment in a crime-ridden city where muggers, murderers, prostitutes and all manner of miscreants roam the streets 24/7. His therapist (Stephen McKinley Henderson) prescribes an experimental drug for his anxiety and warns him to only take it with water. He has booked a flight to see his mother for the anniversary of his father's death, but sleeps through his early morning alarm after a neighbour keeps him awake half the night with their loud music, which thumps through the paper thin walls. After hastily packing, and exiting his apartment, he needs to go back inside momentarily only to discover minutes later that his keys and luggage have been stolen from his front door. Beau calls his mother to explain the situation and seek her advise as to the best solution, but she dismisses him.

Beau takes his medication, but panics when he discovers there's a water outage in the whole block. He anxiously runs across the street to a convenience store to buy a bottle of water evading a group of deranged homeless people who break into his apartment and lock him out. The next morning, having slept on construction scaffolding outside his apartment, he wakes to find his apartment has been turned upside down and trashed. He tries to call his mother, only to have it answered by a UPS driver who tells him that she was seemingly decapitated in an accident at home when a chandelier fell on to her crushing her skull into tiny fragments. In a state of shock, he takes a bath now that the water has been reconnected, only to discover an intruder hanging from the ceiling directly above the bath tub. The intruder falls and lands on top of Beau and after a violent scuffle in the tub, Beau is able to break free and runs naked out of his apartment and onto the streets, where he is hit by a passing truck, following an altercation with a Policeman during which he was held at gunpoint.

Beau comes round two days later in the home of a married couple, Grace (Amy Ryan) and Roger (Nathan Lane), a well regarded surgeon, who hit Beau with their truck. In their care is also an unstable veteran named Jeeves (Denis Menochet), who was their son's army comrade before he was killed in action. The couple have a highly strung and easily led teenage daughter named Toni (Kylie Rogers) who instantly despises Beau for moving into her bedroom and upsetting the balance she has in her life. Beau calls Mona's attorney, Dr. Cohen (Richard Kind) who chastises him and informs Beau that despite the Jewish custom to lay the body to rest as soon as possible, her last wish was not to be buried until he is present, and he had better get himself home immediately wearing a suit and with a eulogy planned. 

Beau repeatedly asks to book the next available flight back home, but Roger promises to drive Beau the six hours it will take to get to his mother's estate, but insists he rest at least one more day until he is healed a little more. Throughout Beau's stay in their home, Grace subtly hints to him that he is being watched and secretly tells him to switch to Channel 78 on the TV and warns Beau not to 'incriminate' himself. Channel 78 plays back the footage captured by concealed CCTV cameras around the property. On the day that Roger is to drive Beau home, Toni takes him to her brother's old room and attempts to force him to paint the walls in different colours. When he refuses, she ruthlessly berates Beau before drinking a can of paint, committing suicide. Grace walks in on Beau standing over Toni's body and violently blames him for her death. As Beau flees into the woods, Grace sends Jeeves after him.  

Running for his dear life, Beau gets knocked out when he runs headlong into a low hanging tree branch. Coming round and lost in the woods, he comes upon a traveling theatre troupe who call themselves 'The Orphans of the Forest'. He is invited to their dress rehearsal and becomes entranced by the play, imagining himself as the protagonist, who spends his entire life looking for his family after they’re separated by a great flood, only to be reunited with his three sons who step down from the stage to greet him. A man then approaches the aged Beau and informs him that he knew his father and that he is alive. The troupe is ambushed by Jeeves, where he slaughters several actors in the process, and now back in the present, Beau flees deeper into the woods dodging automatic machine gun fire.

Beau stumbles out of the woods and hitches a lift to his mother's home, only to find that he had just missed his mother's funeral, but that there is a video presentation playing inside the house. He falls asleep on a sofa and wakes up later that evening to the sound of a woman mooching around the house, having arrived late for the service. He realises that the woman is Elaine (Parker Posey) and they reconnect. They make their way to Mona's bedroom and have sex. Beau is terrified that he's going to die as soon as he ejaculates, but is ecstatic when he lives. However, Elaine is not so lucky as she has died mid-climax, her body seemingly frozen stiff. Mona then appears from the shadows and commands two house servants remove and dispose of the corpse, while revealing that she was not only still alive, and kicking, but watching the whole time. She derides Beau and reveals that his therapist works for her, sharing their sessions with her for years. He demands to know the truth about his father, and she takes him to the attic, where Beau learns that he not only has a secret twin brother who is chained up in a corner, but his father is actually a giant penis-shaped monster. At that moment, Jeeves breaks through a window in the attic and is killed by the monster. Beau escapes the scene down the access ladder and is dragged by his therapist into a lounge area where his mother further humiliates him. In a rare fit of rage, Beau grabs his mother by the throat and attempts to strangle her, before coming to his senses and releases his grip. Mona however, falls backwards and face first into a glass table where she lay motionless.

In a state of shock, Beau leaves the house and finds a motorboat on a nearby beach, taking it out into the sea. After entering a cave and emerging out the other end, the boat's motor begins to stall and he finds himself in a crowded arena, where he's put on trial by a still-alive Mona and Dr. Cohen on a podium acting as prosecutors. They show footage of numerous instances of Beau slighting his mother on a giant video screen while a cheap defence lawyer tries to push the case for Beau, but he is soon murdered by one of Mona's henchmen. Beau tries to fend for himself, but discovers that his feet are now glued to the boat. He attempts to appeal to his mother, but when she does not respond, he finally accepts his fate. The boat's motor explodes, capsizing it and drowning Beau.

Here Ari Aster's Beau has anxiety issues, paranoia issues and Mummy issues who seeks a therapist and a constant diet of pills to keep those issues at bay. Until one day and through no real fault of his own, Beau's world collapses in around him and its hard to distinguish what is real and what is not, as various potentially deadly encounters land directly in his path. A very dark comedy this film certainly is, but what's it's not is a horror film, and more of a psychodrama with a handful of thrills thrown in for good measure. Joaquin Phoenix appears in almost every scene which he handles with aplomb and never seems in doubt of the angst ridden direction that Ari Aster throws at him. The genre bending film won't be for everyone - but those who are satisfied by it are likely to elevate it to cult status in years to come, and even if it doesn't perform so well at the Box Office it will leave the viewer much to discuss and debate once the end credits have rolled. For me, I came out of the theatre feeling a little non-plussed by the experience and drained by the almost three hour run time, but also thinking that perhaps a second viewing is in order. 

'Beau Is Afraid' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a potential five claps.  

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

What's new in Odeon's this week : Thursday 20th April 2023.

The Belmont World Films 21st International Film Series is currently in full swing having launched on Monday 27th March and running though until Monday 15th May. Belmont is a town in Massachusetts, USA and is a western suburb of Boston and forms part of the Greater Boston metropolitan area. Belmont World Film, is a nonprofit corporation which creates cultural exchanges and understanding through the screening of the world’s top films followed by discussions led by expert speakers. Founded in 2001 Belmont World Film began with the premise that foreign-language film is not only a vehicle for hearing another language in action, but it can also foster an emotional understanding of other cultures. Since the series began in Spring 2002 films have been shown from such familiar European countries as the UK, France, Germany, Scotland, Italy, Belgium and Finland, as well as less familiar countries, such as Bhutan, Bulgaria, Romania, Cuba, Bolivia, Iraq, Mongolia, Iceland, Singapore and Luxembourg. Other speakers have included UN envoys, international filmmakers, academic experts on international relations, languages and humanities, journalists, film stars and documentary film subjects.

This years theme is 'Complicated Identities' and features eight of the world's top films, immediately followed by discussions with filmmakers, film subjects or expert speakers. The films are screened each Monday evening throughout the duration of the series, are are as detailed below :-

* Monday 27th March : the Opening film was 'A MAN' from Japan and Directed by Kei Ishakawa. When a lawyer’s former client asks him to investigate a woman’s late husband’s past, he begins to discover that her husband had been living a double life.

* Monday 3rd April : 'LUXEMBOURG, LUXEMBOURG' from Ukraine and Directed by Antonio Lukich. When identical twin brothers — who couldn’t be more different —hear that their long-absent father is sick in Luxembourg, they set out on a journey to see him one last time. Will the man they find be the bad-ass father they remember?

* Monday 10th April : 'THE WORST ONES' from France and Directed by Lise Akoka and Romane Gueret. Four teenagers from a working-class neighbourhood in the north of France are selected to act in a feature film. The film within a film walks a remarkably fine line between fact and fiction, allowing the young performers to give star-making turns as 'themselves' while considering the ways in which ostensibly well-meaning documentary and fiction films can exploit non-performers in the name of authenticity. This film won the Un Certain Regard Award at the Cannes Film Festival.

* Monday 17th April : 'BURNING DAYS' from Turkey and Directed by Emin Alper. A young prosecutor is newly posted in the remote provincial town in Anatolia, Turkey, which is marred by corruption, nepotism, and other shady power dynamics ahead of a local election for the mayoral seat. This town also suffers from a severe water shortage and giant sinkholes caused by the excessive use of groundwater for agricultural purposes, which the local officials refuse to address.

* Monday 24th April : 'FAREWELL MR. HAFFMANN' from France and Belgium and Directed by Fred Cavaye. After the Nazi occupation of Paris, a talented jeweller, Joseph Haffmann, arranges for his family to flee the city and offers one of his employees the chance to take over his store until the conflict subsides. The agreement turns into a Faustian bargain, one that will forever change everyone involved.

* Monday 1st May : 'CHILE '76' from Chile and Argentina and Directed by Manuela Martelli. In 1976, a bourgeois housewife heads to her beach house on the coast of Chile to supervise its renovation, only to be interrupted by a request from the priest at the church where she does charity work, to take care of a young revolutionary — a man he is secretly giving asylum to — who has just been hurt. The woman steps into unexplored territories, away from the quiet life she is used to living.

* Monday 8th May : 'THE BEASTS' from Spain and France and Directed by Rodrigo Sorogoyen. A French couple move to a small village in Galicia in order to practice ecologically responsible agriculture and to restore abandoned houses to facilitate the town’s re-population. Everything should be idyllic but for their opposition to a wind turbine project that creates a serious conflict with their neighbours.

* Monday 15th May : the Closing Film is 'PEACEFUL' from France and Directed by Emmanuelle Bercot. Here, an overbearing mother to her son Benjamin, a 'failed actor' turned acting teacher, who’s given a terminal cancer diagnosis. He seeks advice from Dr. Edde, who plays guitar and leads his staff members in singalongs.

For further information about the 21st Belmont World Film Series you can go to the official website at : https://belmontworldfilm.org/international-film-series/

Turning the attention back to this weeks five new release movies coming to a big screen Odeon near you, with launch with a dark comedy horror drama film which, following the sudden death of his mother, a mild-mannered but anxiety-ridden man confronts his darkest fears as he embarks on an epic, Kafka like journey back home. Next up we have a drama film about a young woman whose life falls apart after her involvement in a fatal accident in which two people died. This is followed by a twisted tale of two estranged sisters whose reunion is cut short by the rise of flesh-possessing demons, thrusting them into a primal battle for survival as they face the most evil version of family imaginable. Then we turn to a drama based on a true story of a national spiritual awakening in the early 1970's and its origins within a community of teenage hippies in Southern California; before closing out the week with a biographical documentary exploring the intertwined fates of trees and humans in this poetic portrait of this Australian environmentalist and political activist, and the Forest.

Whatever your taste in big screen film entertainment is this week - be it any of the five latest release new films as Previewed below, or those doing the rounds currently on general release or as Reviewed and Previewed in previous Blog Posts here at Odeon Online, you are most welcome to share your movie going thoughts, opinions and observations by leaving your relevant, succinct and appropriate views in the Comments section below this or any other Post. We'd love to hear from you, and in the meantime, enjoy your big screen Odeon outing during the coming week.

'BEAU IS AFRAID' (Rated R18+) - is an American black comedy horror film Written, Co-Produced and Directed by Ari Aster whose previous feature film making credits are 'Hereditary' with Toni Collette and Gabriel Byrne in 2018 and 'Midsommar' in 2019 with Florence Pugh and Jack Reynor. The film saw its World Premier screening in New York on 1st April, before it limited release to selected IMAX screens in LA and New York on 14th April, and before its wider release worldwide from this week. It costs US$35M to produce and has so far grossed US$321K.

Here then, Beau Wassermann (Joaquin Phoenix), a mild-mannered, extremely anxious, paranoia-ridden but pleasant enough looking man who has a fraught relationship with his overbearing mother Mona (Patti LuPone) and never knew his father, makes the journey home when his mother dies to attend her funeral. However, along the way he must confront his greatest fears involving some wild supernatural threats. Also starring Amy Ryan, Nathan Lane, Parker Posey, Richard Kind, Hayley Squires and Michael Gandolfini.

'A GOOD PERSON' (Rated MA15+) - this American drama film is Written, Co-Produced and Directed by Zach Braff whose prior feature film making credits are his debut in 2004 with 'Garden State', then 'Wish I Was Here' in 2014 and 'Going in Style' in 2017. Allison (Florence Pugh) is a young woman with a wonderful fiance, a blossoming career, and supportive family and friends. However, her world crumbles in the blink of an eye when she survives an unimaginable tragedy, emerging from recovery with an opioid addiction and unresolved grief. In the following years, she forms an unlikely friendship with her would-be father-in-law Daniel (Morgan Freeman) whose daughters life was taken in that earlier tragedy. As grief-stricken Daniel navigates raising his teenage granddaughter and Allison seeks redemption, they discover that friendship, forgiveness, and hope can flourish in unlikely places. Also starring Celeste O'Connor, Molly Shannon and Zoe Lister-Jones. The film was released Stateside on 24th March, has so far grossed US$2.4M and has garnered mixed or average reviews. 

'EVIL DEAD RISE' (Rated R18+) - is an American supernatural horror film that is Written and Directed by Lee Cronin in only his second feature film outing following 2019 'The Hole in the Ground'. This film is the fifth instalment in the 'Evil Dead' franchise following 'The Evil Dead' in 1981, 'Evil Dead II' in 1987, 'Army of Darkness' in 1992, all having been Directed by Sam Raimi, and then 'Evil Dead' in 2013 Directed by Fede Alvarez. Those first four films grossed worldwide US$156M off the back of combined production budgets of US$32M. Here then, and following a long journey on the road, Beth (Lily Sullivan) visits her estranged older sister Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland), who is struggling to raise three children alone in a small Los Angeles apartment. However, their reunion is interrupted when they find a strange book hidden in the depths of Ellie's building, which unleashes bloodthirsty demonic creatures. The film saw its World Premier showcasing at SXSW on 15th March, is released in the US this week too and has generated largely favourable reviews.

'JESUS REVOLUTION' (Rated M) - this American Christian drama film is Co-Written by Jon Erwin and Directed by Jon Erwin and Brent McCorkle, and is based on the book of the same name by Greg Laurie and Ellen Santilli Vaughn. Jon Erwin, together with his brother Andrew, known as the Erwin Brothers, are American Christian film Directors, Screenwriters and film Producers known for such films as 'Woodlawn', 'October Baby', 'Moms' Night Out' and 'I Can Only Imagine'. Inspired by a true movement, the film tells the story of a young Greg Laurie (Joel Courtney) being raised by his struggling mother, Charlene (Kimberly Williams-Paisley) in the 1970's. Laurie and a sea of young people descend on sunny Southern California to redefine truth through all means of liberation. Inadvertently, Laurie meets Lonnie Frisbee (Jonathan Roumie), a charismatic hippie-street-preacher, and Pastor Chuck Smith (Kelsey Grammer) who have thrown open the doors of Smith's languishing church to a stream of wandering youth. What unfolds becomes the greatest spiritual awakening in American history. Rock and roll, newfound love, and a twist of faith lead to a Jesus Revolution that turns one counterculture movement into a revival that changes the world. The film was released in the US on the 24th February, cost US$15M to produce, has so far grossed US$52M having received mixed or average reviews along the way. 

'THE GIANTS' (Rated M) - is an Australian biographical documentary film Written and Directed by Rachel Antony and Laurence Billiet, that is a long overdue biopic of Australian environmentalist Bob Brown, a National Living Treasure, the first openly gay member of parliament in Australia and leader of the world’s first Green party. It’s also about the life of Trees, which scientists are only starting to understand. The film goes from Bob story to the trees’ story - revealing just how closely intertwined they are. Brown’s fifty year trailblazing life helps narrate the exhilarating rise of the environmental movement in Australia from the successful Franklin River campaign in 1983 to today's fight for the Tarkine rainforest in northwest Tasmania. The film is a poetic exploration of his motivations and his actions that began, like Greta Thunberg, with a few lone acts of protest; and of his spiritual connection to nature that continues to sustain him. 

With five new release movie offerings this week to tempt you out to your local Odeon, remember to share your movie going thoughts with your other like minded cinephile friends afterwards here at Odeon Online. In the meantime, I'll see you sometime somewhere at your local Odeon in the week ahead.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-