Warning: This article contains spoilers about Beau is Afraid.Beau is Afraid ends as strangely as it began, and Beau's fate was actually foreshadowed at the beginning of Ari Aster's surreal movie. A skittish man afraid of his own shadow, Beau (Joaquin Phoenix) must leave the sanctity of his apartment after he finds out his mother has died, despite the fact that everything outside is a frightening world of violent murderers and criminals. But, just as he begins his journey to her funeral, he's struck by a car and taken in by the couple responsible. His journey is shaped by their homicidal neighbor, self-destructive daughter, and a traveling troupe of performers in the forest.
When he finally reaches his mother's house and finds that she staged her death, he flies into a rage and strangles her. She staggers back and crashes through a display table, and Beau flees the house, eventually taking a small motorboat out onto a lake and towards a giant stone stadium. At the end of Beau is Afraid, Beau finds himself standing trial not only for trying to kill his mother but for myriad transgressions in his life. The boat eventually capsizes, and he can be heard pounding and screaming on the underside of the hull before finally falling silent, and this grim fate was hinted at from the very beginning.
The Muffled Screaming Beau Always Hears Is Himself
Beau is Afraid has wild twists, but one of the biggest is that Beau's muffled screams can be heard throughout the movie's first hour, particularly when Beau is at his most anxious. When he's in his apartment, it sounds like neighbors pounding on the walls, and when he's out in the streets, he hears the pounding accompanied by desperate pleading. What Beau — and what the audience — doesn't know is that Beau has been trying to reach himself the entire film.
Beau is a victim of life who allows himself to be controlled by anyone else around him with a stronger personality, from his domineering mother and his therapist to even Roger and Grace. The trial at the end of the film is his final protestation and defense of himself, but he cannot win. He dies without ever making many of his own choices, yet in a way, some part of him was trying to break through to the other part that might be strong enough to make his own decisions and claim his own agency.
Beau's Fate Was Always Sealed
Beau spends the entire movie trying to reach his mother's funeral, and in every instance along the way, he tries to assert his own personal freedom but never can manage it. Roger keeps prolonging his trip, Roger's daughter tries to get him to drink paint, and the woman in the theater troupe forces him to participate in the play, leaving Beau a continuous victim of circumstance. When he hears the muffled cries at the corners of his mind, it's not just his anxiety playing tricks but his own agency trying to break free.
Unfortunately, thanks to his domineering mother filling his head with stories to make him sexually fearful and terrified of the world, he's never been able to lead his own life. To shield himself from the terrible things he perceives in the world, he's just gone along with what everyone around him has said until it's too late. By the time he finds his voice in Beau is Afraid, it's at a point where he has no power because he's in a little motorboat that's capsizing, surrounded by strangers who don't care about him, and the damage has already been done.