Photo by Photo Credit: Takashi Seida/Takashi Seida – © Mommy Knows Best LLC.

A24 has released a new trailer on a highly anticipated Joaquin Phoenix’s latest outing, “Beau is Afraid.” An indie filmmaker Ari Aster has become one of the most exciting writers/directors right now.

Following the two of critical success films, which were psychologically bruising horrors, “Hereditary” and “Midsommar,” the filmmaker returns with his most ambitious film, “Beau Is Afraid” which Joaquin Phoenix plays a character dealing with the fear of going to his mother’s house. When talking about the feature, Aster compared the film to “Lord of the Rings” involving this man’s journey to his mother’s house.

Opening on Phoenix’s titular character, but as his teenage version portrayed by Armen Nahapetian, we see Beau sitting by the pool on a warm summer day and setting eyes on a young woman. A flash to the present day reveals a middle-aged Beau, now played by Phoenix, looking back on a photo of his adolescent crush and reuniting with her in the present day.

 

Written and directed by Aster, he pulled together a star-studded cast for his latest psychologically thrilling film, Nathan Lane, Amy Ryan, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Hayley Squires, Denis Ménochet, Kylie Rogers, Armen Nahapetian, Zoe Lister-Jones, with Parker Posey, and Patti LuPone. 

The film has been 10 years in the making, and Aster tried to make it his debut ages ago (he made a short based on the story about a decade plus ago during film school). “It began with me just trying to make myself laugh,” he told the New York Times, detailing how he made the short during graduate school at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. 

A24 will be releasing Aster’s latest film, “Beau is Afraid” in theaters on April 21, 2023.