Beau is afraid of the end

Warning: This post contains major spoilers for Beau's AfraidBeau is scaredof The ending is one of the wildest and strangest endings of the year. Written and directed by Ari Aster, whose filmography has historically dealt with similar themes, Beau is scared follows the titular character (played by Joaquin Phoenix) on a journey towards consciousness after the unexpected death of his mother Mona.

Beau is scared received a mostly positive critical reception. At three hours long, the neurotic odyssey is Aster's longest film to date. The film ends with Beau strangling Mona after learning that she faked her own death. Mona collapses, probably truly dead, while Beau escapes to a boat, finally free from the shackles of his life, as well as the fear and anxiety that dictated his life. But it's not long before he faces Mona (and her lawyer) once again, trapped in a watery amphitheater while listening to the sins he committed as a son. Beau's boat eventually explodes, throwing him deep into the water, where he struggles to get up but apparently drowns.

Why Mona Faked Her Own Death

Shocking Beau Is Afraid of a Kink Explained

Beau is told early on that his mother, Mona, died after a chandelier fell and cut off her head, but this is revealed before the end of Beau is Afrai that she faked her own death. Mona felt rejected after “squeezing out” all her love to give to Beau, who she felt was ungrateful after everything she gave him, and he didn't bother to come visit her. To Patti LuPone's Mona, Beau was an endless well of disappointment, always asking what he should do – for fear of doing the wrong thing. Mona claims she did everything in her power to raise Beau, giving him everything her mother never did for her.

Mona wanted to see if Beau would attend her funeral, which would solidify her feeling of rejection and indicate a lack of love for her on Beau's part. Mona worked extremely hard and expected Beau to give her unconditional love simply by being his mother. Faking his own death was Beau's ultimate test as a son – at least in Mona's eyes. Not arriving on time for the funeral confirmed to Mona that he didn't care about her the way she wanted him to. He didn't put her first even though she was gone. Mona’s “death” was a trap and Beau reaffirmed the abandonment his mother already felt, regardless of her actions.

What was real in Beau's fear

Was it all happening in Beau's mind?

There are many aspects Beau is scared that make viewers question what is real and what is not. What becomes clear at the end of Beau is scared it's how deep Beau's fear and anxiety runs. Other characters keep track of him throughout the film, and he never feels safe – often in an exaggerated way. Beau is scared suggests that most things are actually happening in Beau's mind. The people recording him influence Beau's feeling of being watched by his mother all the time.

From fearing his own neighborhood, which itself is an extreme version of how Mona might perceive life in the city, and being trapped by Grace and Roger's family makes Beau feel suffocated and stifled by his mother's expectations. It's possible that Beau's journey was a manifestation of his own feelings coming to life, a slice of his perceived reality, rather than what was objectively happening.

When viewing events from Beau is scared From the titular character's perspective, certain events – such as his mother faking her own death – can be interpreted as objective reality. Considering what was revealed throughout the film especially about Mona, it's easy to believe that she would go so far to test Beau's love. However, the film itself is executed in a way that suggests a disconnect from reality. Within the context of the film, much of Beau is scared it could be the result of Beau's intense emotions.

Beau's father

What does the creature represent?

Mona tells Beau that her father had a heart murmur and died the night of her conception. When he goes to the attic, Beau sees a malnourished man before he is replaced by a penis-shaped creature. Since it's unclear whether it's real, the creature could represent Beau's own sense of masculinity.

Beau is afraid to have sex because he thinks he might die like his father didSo the idea that his genitals would be a terrifying creature says a lot about how he sees himself. It could be that his father died and he created this monstrous form to deal with his father's absence and its effects on his psyche.

What Beau's Dream Odyssey Really Means

The symbolic moment captures Beau's anxieties

In the second half of Beau is scaredBeau is watching a play about a young man who is being restricted in life. Beau then begins to imagine himself on this journey, walking into the unknown and carving his own path in life. In this dreamlike story, Beau has a life – a wife and three children – that he ends up losing before wandering alone for years. Although he is finally reunited with his children in the dream, Beau is accused of being so selfish that he was difficult to find. Much of this dream sequence hints at Beau's own repressed desires for such a life. His own fears prevented him from starting a family.

But the imagined events also point to Beau's fear of being an absent father like his own father, though through no fault of his own. Beau's odyssey dream also speaks to the idea of ​​being lost, of searching for something he can't find, and of being overwhelmed by his own guilt and the terror of moving forward. Beau moves on and ends up retreating into his own mind instead of facing the reality of his life and what he could do about it. Beau's imagined journey is fraught with obstacles, but it suggests that he—and not just his mother—is also getting in the way of his own happiness.

Does Beau really die in the end?

The scene is metaphorically ambiguous

After strangling his mother at the end of Beau is scaredBeau believes he is free, so he takes a boat out on the water and sits there for a long time, content. But he is trapped again inside an amphitheater with his mother, who came back to life (or never died, depending on how you look at it), his lawyer and hundreds of onlookers. The lawyer goes through a list of transgressions and Beau is unable to adequately defend himself. Overwhelmed by the stress of it all, the boat explodes – as Beau's own feelings come to the surface – and he falls into the water.

Beau heard a gurgle before everything went silent, probably dying. This sequence can be interpreted as Beau being completely swallowed by his mother after a brief moment of freedom, paralleling the first scene in the film in which Beau is born. While he emerged from the womb to live his own life, Beau's death in the water is the culmination of a life metaphorically surrounded by water, with no way out.

In a way, Beau retreated into the womb, completely enveloped by his mother's “love,” unable to have his own life apart from her. Beau's essence has basically died, and his own fears and anxieties have claimed him, preventing him from breaking through what holds him back.

Why did Elaine die instead of Beau?

Mona might be right

Beau is afraid to have sex because that's how his father died. However, Beau managed to survive sex with Elaine, who died. It's possible that Elaine died as a direct connection to Beau's fear that sex kills. Crucially, sex with he can kill, signaling that Mona may have been right all along.

Beau may be projecting his fear onto the situation, to the point where it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. He is so afraid and anxious about his masculinity that it may have been transferred. Her fears manifested into reality, her orgasm killed Elaine just before the moment Mona was confirmed alive, mirroring Mona's own experience with Beau's father.

What the End of Beau's Afraid Really Means

Beau is scared it's about the suffocating life someone can lead when they're overwhelmed with so much fear, anxiety, and paranoia. With the relationship between Beau and his mother being so central to the story Beau is scared shows how a toxic relationship between parents and children can be harmful to their own development.

Aster suggests that having such an overbearing father, whose behavior indicates that nothing can meet his impossible standards, is paralyzing. The expectation that unconditional love should be given regardless of poor treatment is at the heart of the film, which also posits the all-consuming fear of repercussions and guilt, and how one can be affected by one's own inaction due to these feelings.

How Beau's Afraid's Ending Was Received

The final moments were divisive

While Beau is scared was divisive (as evidenced by its 68% Tomatometer score in Rotten tomatoes), Ari Aster's 2023 film had its supporters. In particular, Joaquin Phoenix's performance was celebrated and earned the actor a Golden Globe nomination. However, it was also an undisputed failure at the box office, grossing just $12.3 million globally against a budget of $35 million (through Mojo Box Office). The end of Beau is scared doesn't seem to have fueled the division, though it's also a product of the film's strange tone – and this is where opinions are divided.

Beau is scared It's a surreal film, and strange films like this tend to divide opinions. In case of Beau is scared, the rhythm and ambiguity were not to everyone's taste. Writing to The Guardian, critic Mark Kermode explained that some aspects of the Beau is scared make this an endurance test for some viewers:

“I think Beau is scared is best described as a fun shaggy dog ​​story that tests your patience and asks, “What if your mom could hear all those unspeakable things you tell your therapist?” Parts of this are hilarious. Other sections give way. Some will find this unbearable.”

Kermode mentioned a scene from the end of Beau is scared which he particularly liked, highlighting how it showed one of the film's strengths – its sense of humor:

“The penultimate funeral farce, which I've been laughing out loud at for weeks, combines the body horror of David Cronenberg's film Goosebumps with the sensitivity of a teenage mummy's son enthusiastically scribbling graffiti on a school bathroom wall.”

There were some critics with positive opinions about the film who highlighted the ending of Beau is scared also as a strong point. Those with this view tended to be the responders who most enjoyed the film's strange, chaotic pacing. Writing to Roger Ebert, critic Nick Allen described the ending of Beau is scared with clear passion for many of its aspects:

The film's third act, the specific events of which are not revealed here, has “Beau Is Afraid” taking its full form as an exploitation film adapted from a therapist's notebook. It's a full-on Grand Guignol emotional and psychological trauma, with moments of horror, jaw-dropping cartoon absurdity, and an uncomfortable mix of past and present accompanied by a perfectly chosen Mariah Carey song. Aster brings more characters, revelations and more explosions of the psychological variety.

However, even in this positive analysis of the Beau is scared, there is a divisive response. Although Allen and other critics who share his point of view liked many aspects of the ending, he was quick to point out that it was an incredibly risky way to end the film and may not have worked out as well for Ari Aster as it did for him. could have:

“For all the power of this feverish work, including its fire-and-brimstone performances, it creates a weariness that doesn't work in Aster's favor. The sequence is visually admirable—its unsettling backdrop of modern architecture looms over its characters, and there are images inserted loudly to even out the tone. But like the intense strings of Bobby Krlic's score, their urgent atonal nature at such a high volume becomes numbing, as does the central dialogue; creates an Oedipal statement and twists that border on self-parody.