Ari Aster BEAU IS AFRIAD is not for everyone. It starts as an assault on the senses and progresses to deliver a meditation on psychology. Aster previous films burnt slowly, simmering with a disturbance that left many shell shocked. His films are the sort of films that split audiences down the middle, for some (me included) they were hit and miss. As BEAU is about to be delivered on digital, I decided to cast my eye on it for you lucky people!

Beau Wasserman (Joaquin Pheonix) is the son of a famous and wealthy businesswoman, Mona (Patti LuPone). Beau is anxious, extremely anxious about the world. His psychologists thinks he just needs other medications. But he worries that he is alone in a crime-ridden city, with a series of horrible things to avoid (including a dead body in the middle of the road). As he prepared for a flight to see his mother for the anniversary of his father’s death, things begin to take a tumble. His neighbour becomes unreasonable. He misses his plane. Then his keys and luggage are stolen from his door. Beau calls his mother to explain the situation, but she dismisses him. After a night trapped outside, he tries to ease the relationship and calls her again. A UPS driver tells him that she was decapitated in an accident, after a chandelier fell on her head and now Beau is on a mission to get home to her for the burial.

Aster said that he envisioned BEAU IS AFRAID as ‘a Jewish Lord of the Rings’. While he might not have hit the strides of that hallowed ground, he has certainly given the audience food for thought. You see the film really is about Jewishness. How we are in ourselves and how we can politicize and pollute these ideas. As a ‘herditary’ Jew but a Catholic in belief, it resonated. I do wonder if others will get this? Asters other films have spliced cult identity as their core points. Here its specifically Jewishness. Putting this aside, I see it, as a film that grows on the viewer. A film that you watch, despair at. Return to in ten years and its revelatory. The sheer chaos of the piece, mixed with its obvious conversation on phobias, psychosis and mental trauma, leave you wanting to extract more. Aster avoids this by littering your path with arcane absurdity. You might not get what you want from it but then maybe that is the point?

BEAU IS AFRIAD is out on Monday