Beau Is Afraid, out in April from indie powerhouse A24, is already one of 2023’s most anticipated films. It’s got Oscar-winning weirdo Joaquin Phoenix in the lead role, playing a schlubby old guy (with actor Armen Nahapetian playing his eerily identical teen self). And it’s got Ari Aster in the director’s chair—you know him as the dude behind Hereditary and Midsommar. Aster’s developed a cult fanbase among horror fans on the strength of those two films, which are uniquely terrifying in their own ways.
And Beau Is Afraid will surely continue that tradition. Or will it? Based on its incredibly fun first trailer—yes, seriously, fun!—the film looks like it could be as much a barrel of surreal laughs as it is a trick-or-treat bucket of frights.
This “greatest adventure” is one filled with more action and less meditative frights than Aster has previously exposed us to. (Never forget: That creepy little girl’s head getting clean chopped off in Hereditary.) The overarching plot seems pretty standard: Beau has to go home to see his mom, but he’s afraid, and he must face his fears to do it.
But aside from the haunting voiceover about generational trauma at the start, the trailer has a jaunty score soundtracking the increasingly weird circumstances Beau (Phoenix) finds himself in. Perhaps it’s a red herring? Or perhaps not, because things start looking wacky fast: Seemingly homebound, he escapes from his apartment with plastic bags on his feet through a disaster scene on the streets. This leads him to get hit by a car, driven by Amy Ryan, which lands him in the care of Ryan and a somewhat sinister Nathan Lane.
No one, it seems, wants our hero to go home to see his mom, like he’s supposed to. They’re chucking all kinds of absurd roadblocks in his way: Lane affixes an ankle monitor to Beau’s leg. Someone makes a colorful array of Wizard of Oz-like sets for him to walk endlessly through. (Someone call Charlie Kaufman, stat.)
There’s gunfire. And zombies, maybe? Beau gets a kiss from Parker Posey, for some reason. Richard Kind is also there, looking as menacing as Richard Kind could look. Beau grows an old-man beard—maybe time is working against him too? And don’t get me started on the cutesy creepiness of that kid playing young Beau.
Aster-heads in the comments and on Reddit that are well-versed in the director’s catalog suggest that there’s a lot more than surreal humor to Beau Is Afraid. There are thematic references to Aster’s earliest work throughout—his short films, which run a much creepier gamut than even his features have so far. But even if you don’t have that background info informing your viewing of this trailer, you can agree that this is utterly bizarre, weirdly wonderful, and probably at least kinda funny. Nathan Lane and Richard Kind are in it! How could it not be?
Beau Is Afraid is in theaters April 21.
