Beau is afraid of a lot of things.
He’s afraid of getting cancer from eating certain foods. He’s afraid of the beggars and vagrants who live outside his apartment building. He’s afraid of dying from a heart murmur, like his dad.
But mostly, Beau’s afraid of his mother.
He’s supposed to go visit her. Only, he doesn’t really want to. As his therapist puts it, Do you really want to drink from a well that’s poisoned you before?
Beau really doesn’t want to see his mom. She can be manipulative and cunning. And frankly, he doesn’t want to her to give him a guilt trip.
Unfortunately, the only thing Beau fears more than visiting his mother is not visiting her. So he’d better find a way to make it work.
A traveling theater troupe welcomes to Beau, offering him a place to stay when he is lost. (And we hear they came together as a sort of family after their own family members died or abandoned them.) A family takes a soldier with PTSD into their home to care for him. A woman is terrified when her newborn baby doesn’t cry, but doctors are able to activate the child’s lungs.
A family prays before a meal. A sign in Beau’s neighborhood features a picture of Christ with the words “Jesus sees your abominations.” Someone dresses as an angel for a play. There’s a moment where Beau appears to see into the future. Someone calls him a demon. A woman says she would have begged for God’s forgiveness if she had been wrong about an assumption.
A couple has sex, leaving almost nothing to the imagination. (We see other couples having sex in the background of some scenes.) A 6-foot tall, animated penis monster makes an appearance (symbolic of a man who is a big jerk).
At different points in the film, we see Beau’s testicles, which are grossly enlarged (and a doctor tells Beau to get an ultrasound since it could be a serious medical condition). We see a few people streaking through the streets. (And when they aren’t running, we can see their genitals, too.) When Beau bathes, soap prevents us from see his groin, but not the rest of his body. We see people in varying stages of undress throughout the film (including a teenage girl wearing a bra). A man in tiny shorts dances in the street for money. We see some folks in swimsuits by a pool.
A teenage couple kisses several times. In a dream-like sequence, Beau kisses a woman. Later, he pictures the same woman as a man, but doesn’t kiss her. A man kisses Beau on the mouth in a platonic, sympathetic way.
When Beau is a young boy, his mother, Mona, gives an obscene description of what it was like to have sex with his father. A verbal narration explains that a woman became pregnant because her husband had sex with her. Teenagers talk about virginity. There is an unmarried pregnant woman. We hear a man had an affair and got divorced as a result.
Beau’s apartment is located above an adult video store. A sign advertises “Cheap Divorces.” There are some obscene graffiti drawings. Several prostitutes hang out outside Beau’s apartment building. A flashback shows some teen boys sniffing and stealing the undergarments of their friend’s mom.
There are multiple depictions of suicide in this film. A girl drinks paint and is later found by her mother, who is unable to revive her. A man jumps to his death, splitting his head open. We hear that a woman volunteered to be killed so her family would receive a huge payout from her killer. Another man threatens to jump off a tall building, egged on by bystanders who are live-streaming the situation.
A man attacks several people, throwing knives into folks’ heads, casting a grenade into the crowd and firing a machine gun. When someone hits him over the head to stop him, he falls on his own gun, which continues to fire (he survives, but the bullets tear through his shoulder and kill the man who knocked him down). A woman is strangled; although her attacker stops, her windpipe is crushed, and she dies (later we see bruises on her neck). When a boat capsizes, a man drowns. Someone throws knives and shoots at the aforementioned penis monster. The creature stabs the man through his skull with a spike-like appendage.
We’re told that Beau’s father died from a heart murmur while having sex (and Mona graphically describes this to her son). Later, a woman dies in a similar manner. Her body is thrown to the floor by her terrified lover, and two people carry her off to be buried. A woman instructs her friend to tear a man apart. A girl threatens to accuse a man of sexual and physical assault. Two girls fantasize about causing a teacher’s death by accusing him of sexual assault to get him fired.
We hear that a woman was found dead, her head completely obliterated by a chandelier that had fallen. Later, we see her body in an open casket, sans head. A rotting corpse lies in the street outside Beau’s apartment for several days until it’s run over by a vehicle. Beau finds the body of a man who died from a brown recluse spider bite to the neck. (We see a picture of someone’s hand who was also bitten.) We hear about a soldier who was killed in action. Some people find a dead body in a pool, and a teen girl asks to have her picture taken with it. A woman casually mentions that her father bled to death.
Beau watches a news story about a man on the loose who has stabbed (and killed) several people. Later, Beau gets stabbed repeatedly by this same man (though he survives). A man uses his thumbs to gouge someone’s eyes out. We hear that a soldier with PTSD was found running through the jungle, shooting the corpses of both the enemy and his own squadron. A man hides in an apartment by climbing above the bathtub. Later, he falls while the owner is using the tub, and the two men wrestle in the water, both nearly drowning.
We hear that someone split his head open while water skiing. Someone is accidentally hit by a car and sports heavy scrapes and cuts the rest of the film. A couple of people jump through glass doors and windows. (One man gets a piece of glass stuck in his head which bleeds heavily but briefly upon removal.) A man falls down an attic ladder. A few people fall through glass tables. People fight in a few scenes. Beau accidentally rips his stitches open. A man gets violently clotheslined by a tree while running from a pursuer. A girl slams on her brakes to make her passenger hit his head. We hear a mother scream during childbirth.
A beggar wears a sign offering to cut off her own hands for cash. A man purchases a gun from a street vendor. “Kill children” is spraypainted on a wall. We hear angry shouting (sometimes accompanied by gunshots) at Beau’s apartment complex. Beau accidentally hits a man while opening a door. He also imagines someone breaking down his door. We see blood on the walls of an apartment. A frightened cop shoots at an unarmed man.
Two people attempt to sedate a PTSD victim having a violent episode using an unnamed drug in a syringe. A man is incapacitated via electrocution through an ankle monitor.
The plot of a play includes plague victims and homes being destroyed.
We hear about 25 uses of the f-word and three uses each of the s-word and c-word. God’s name is abused about 25 times as well. There are additional uses of “a–hole,” “b–ch,” “d–n,” “f-ggot,” “h—,” “p-ss,” “p—y,” “slut,” “t-ts” and “whore.” The f-word, s-word, “c–k” and “p—y” are all written out.
A doctor illegally prescribes several medications for himself, his family and his house guests. When his daughter takes several bottles of pills off a counter, he warns her not to mix the medications. Later, we see the girl doing just that, eating the pills like candy.
Two teen girls blackmail a man into smoking a marijuana joint laced with several other unknown drugs. (The girls also smoke the joint.) We see drug paraphernalia left behind in a man’s home.
A woman has wine with her meal. Another woman admits she’s been drinking lots of wine. Someone smokes a cigarette.
As I mentioned in the introduction, Beau’s mother, Mona, can be manipulative and cunning. At times, she seems loving and caring, affirming her son and telling him he’s a blessing. However, these moments are soured by the fact that she expects him to return her love and devotion in exactly the same way she delivers it.
When Beau is unable to give Mona what she desires (even due to circumstances beyond his control), she emotionally manipulates him, accusing Beau of intentionally hurting her. She continues this pattern throughout the film, essentially blaming her son for every bad thing that has happened in her life. And when bad things happen to Beau, she tells him it’s his own fault and even accuses him of lying about those things.
Other people in Beau and Mona’s life perpetrate this narrative as well. Those who initially reassure Beau later accuse him of torturing his mother. Beau discovers many lies (which his mother claims were told to protect him), and we learn she locked him into the attic when he was a child, among other abuses. (Beau tries to take revenge by having sex with a woman on his mother’s bed.)
After hitting a man with their car, a doctor and his wife take a man into their home and patch him up. This seems like a kind gesture until it becomes clear they neglected to take him to a hospital for more sinister reasons. (The couple’s daughter believes her parents are trying to replace her late brother with the man they hit. She rebels by treating the man horribly.)
A man covered in tattoos and piercings, and who wears contacts that make his eyes appear completely black, chases Beau into his apartment building. Beau’s keys (and suitcase) are stolen, and then he gets locked out of his apartment building. Homeless people from the streets below find their way into the building and enter his unlocked apartment, destroying his possessions. Beau’s building is covered in vile graffiti. When Beau’s neighbor falsely believes that Beau is blasting his music (Beau’s apartment is silent), the man blasts his own stereo, shaking the walls of Beau’s place.
Beau tries to make himself vomit when he accidentally ingests medication without water (because he was specifically instructed to take the pill with water and fears it will kill him otherwise). Someone violently vomits onto a computer. A graffiti sketch shows a cartoon man urinating into his own mouth. Another sketch shows someone with diarrhea. A girl forces a boy to eat fondue that has bugs in it. A young Beau tells someone about the different dangers of various desserts (including hidden razor blades and cancer-causing chemicals).
People lie. A man discovers he’s being spied on. Several adults mention that they were abandoned by their parents.
I think I might be afraid for anyone who goes to watch Beau Is Afraid.
Obscene language, brutal violence, multiple depictions of suicide and explicit sex scenes permeate this film from start to finish. The plot flows about as smoothly as a capsized boat (which this film also has). This story has been categorized as being a “dark comedy horror” film. But really, it feels more like a drug-induced fever dream for which they forgot to write the ending.
Typically at Plugged In, we try not to tell you what to do regarding a given piece of entertainment. We give you all the information you need to make the best decision for yourself and your family.
But every now and then, there’s an exception. So, allow me to save three hours of your life: Don’t go see Beau Is Afraid.
Emily studied film and writing when she was in college. And when she isn’t being way too competitive while playing board games, she enjoys food, sleep, and geeking out with her husband indulging in their “nerdoms,” which is the collective fan cultures of everything they love, such as Star Wars, Star Trek, Stargate and Lord of the Rings.
