Beau is Afraid(2023)

Plot Summary

• Beau Wassermann is the son of a famous and wealthy businesswoman, Mona. He grows up without a father, who his mother says died during an orgasm (which was also when Beau was conceived), a hereditary medical condition that she claims was passed down to Beau. As a teenager, Beau meets and falls in love with a girl named Elaine. The two kiss and Beau promises to remain a virgin until they meet again as adults.As an adult, Beau is extremely anxious and living alone in a crime-ridden city. His therapist prescribes an experimental drug for his anxiety and warns him to only take it with water. He prepares for a flight to see his mother for his parents' wedding anniversary. After being kept awake through the night due to a neighbor playing loud music through the walls, Beau sleeps through his alarm. After hastily packing, he discovers that his keys and luggage have been stolen from his door. Beau calls his mother to explain the situation, but she dismisses him.Beau takes his medication, but panics when he discovers there's a water outage. On his way to a convenience store across the street, he evades a group of deranged homeless people who break into his apartment and lock him out. After sleeping on scaffolding outside the building, Beau returns to his vandalized apartment the next morning. He attempts to call his mother, only to have it answered by a postal worker who describes finding a decapitated woman. Beau is soon told it is his mother. In a state of shock, he tries to take a bath and discovers an intruder hiding in the ceiling. The intruder falls and Beau runs naked out of his apartment and onto the streets. After a brief confrontation with a police officer, Beau is hit by a truck.Beau wakes up two days later in the house of a married couple, Grace and Roger. They care for an unstable veteran named Jeeves, who was their son's army comrade after he was killed in action. The couple have an angsty, teenage daughter named Toni who instantly despises Beau. Beau calls Mona's attorney, Dr. Cohen, who chastises him and informs Beau that her last wish was not to be buried until he is present. Roger promises to take Beau to his mother's estate as soon as possible, but insists he rest until he's healed. On the day Beau is supposed to leave, Toni takes Beau to her brother's old room and attempts to force him to paint the walls in different colors. When he refuses, she ruthlessly berates Beau and drinks out of a paint bucket, killing herself. Grace walks in on Beau standing over Toni's body and violently blames him for her death. Beau flees into the woods and Grace sends Jeeves after him.Lost in the wilderness, Beau comes upon a group of traveling theatre actors called "The Orphans of the Forest". He is invited to the rehearsal and becomes entranced by the play, imagining himself as the protagonist in a lengthy animated sequence that illustrates an alternate life path that parallels his own. A man approaches Beau and informs him that he knew his father and that he's alive. The troupe is ambushed by Jeeves, slaughtering several actors in the process. Beau evades Jeeves and flees deeper into the forest.Beau hitchhikes the rest of his way to the estate, only to find that he had just missed his mother's funeral. He naps on the couch and wakes up to the sound of a woman entering the house, late for the service. He realizes it is Elaine and they reconnect. They make their way to Mona's bedroom and passionately make love. Beau is terrified that he's going to die the second he ejaculates, but is relieved when he survives. However, Elaine has died mid-climax, her body frozen stiff. Mona then appears from the shadows and reveals that she was not only still alive but watching the whole time. She shames Beau and tells him that his therapist works for her and has been 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, but his father is actually a giant penis-shaped monster. After further humiliation from his mother, an enraged Beau strangles her. He then leaves the estate and finds a motorboat on a beach, commandeering it into the sea and begins to drive it into a cave. The boat's motor begins to sputter and malfunction. It is revealed that he is inside a pool within a crowded arena. Beau is put on trial with Mona and Dr. Cohen acting as prosecutors while a defense attorney advocates for Beau. Video evidence of every time he has slighted his mother is broadcast on a jumbotron. Beau's attorney is murdered by one of Mona's henchmen, leaving Beau to fend for himself. Beau attempts to appeal to his mother one last time, but accepts his fate when she does not respond. The boat finally explodes, killing Beau. Mona and Dr. Cohen shake hands and leave the arena with the crowd.

Storyline

• With his mother's gloomy spectre looming over his entire life, grizzled outcast Beau has never made sense of his miserable existence. And perpetually baffled by reality and his conflicting urgent needs, the neurotic New Yorker gets a hearty slice of crippling anxiety and sheer paranoia when he sets foot in a strangely familiar war zone: his neighbourhood. But as the pill-popping hermit reluctantly embarks on a Sisyphean quest for answers, determined to reunite with his estranged mum at all costs, Beau must summon every last ounce of courage to confront everything that has kept him in the dark. To have a fighting chance of deciphering the sinister secrets that continue to rule his life, Beau must grapple with deep-seated phobias, deal with heavy guilt, and face the menacing parent. Because, in his case, love was a fiendish trap--the labyrinthine depths of maternal affection were only the means to an end. Now, the drugs don't work, and Beau is afraid. As the universe conspires against his conquest and the end draws near, will Beau be able to fight his inner demons for a change? — Nick Riganas