Genesis: Noah drunkenly falls asleep naked in his tent. Ham wanders in looking for his father, and instead catches a glimpse of the old man’s penis. When Noah wakes up, humiliated, he punishes his son by cursing his lineage. Henceforth, shame springs eternal—dad’s junk can determine the course of generations. So goes the mythic thrust of Ari Aster’s ballsy third picture, Beau Is Afraid, whose impressive endurance over three hours isn’t quite enough to cleave the pin.
Beau Wassermann (Joaquin Phoenix), like many of us in the Semitic tradition, would say he has a mother who is a vindictive, enterprising, narcissistic bitch, and a father who is a monstrous cock and balls—only he wouldn’t be sensationalizing. Tycoon of industry Mona Wassermann, played in her adulthood by a hawkish, astringent, dizzyingly labile Patti LuPone, and as a young “Did it hurt?” a young Beau asks his mother. “I bet it was excruciating,” she replies, leering over him as he lies in bed beneath her in a colourfully strobing psychosexual flashback.
