Folks who have been waiting with bated breath for Ari Aster’s next film Beau is Afraid were finally treated to a two-minute-long trailer for the film which stars Joaquin Phoenix and as broadly expected, it left pretty much everyone with a lot more questions than answers.
Phoenix is seen well and truly channeling some Arthur Fleck energy from his performance in Joker, but as far as the plot is concerned, everyone’s feeling just as lost as they were going in.
The synopses that have been shared about the film so far haven’t helped to resolve much about the film either. The one on the film’s IMDb page prior to the release of the trailer described the film as ‘An intimate, decades-spanning portrait of one of the most successful entrepreneurs of all time.’
The new one that we got alongside the first trailer for the upcoming A24 film then offered up the premise of “a paranoid man embarking on an epic odyssey to get home to his mother.”
Of course, it is entirely possible that Phoenix’s character can both be paranoid and an entrepreneur, but from what we’ve seen of him in the trailer, he doesn’t particularly strike us as impressive or ‘successful enough to give off that entrepreneur vibe. We can spitball all day, but perhaps these two synopses are seen from different angles.
In any case, we’re sure to get all of our answers, or find ourselves even more confused, terrified, or amused, perhaps simultaneously – when Beau is Afraid releases on April 28, 2023. You can check out the trailer for yourself right here.