Beau Is Afraid Trailer Sees Joaquin Phoenix Lose Grip on Reality in Midsommar Director’s Latest

The official trailer for Midsommar and Hereditary director Ari Aster’s Beau Is Afraid has arrived, and it gives an unsettling look at Joaquin Phoenix’s Beau losing grip on reality as he tries to get back to his mother.

The trailer begins with Beau’s mother telling a younger version of him how sorry she is for “what your daddy passed down to you, but I wanted a child, the greatest gift of my life.”

What follows is a journey that’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s in an older Beau’s head. We get glimpses of a city in chaos, Beau getting hit by a car and being kept by two people, a trip to a storybook, cartoony world, and much more.

“A paranoid man embarks on an epic odyssey to get home to his mother in this bold and ingeniously depraved new film from writer/director Ari Aster,” the official description reads.

Alongside Phoenix, Beau Is Afraid stars Nathan Lane, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Patti LuPone, Amy Ryan, and Parkey Posey. It will be released in theaters on April 21, 2023.

While you wait for Beau Is Afraid, be sure to check out our chats with Ari Aster about Midsommar’s ending and how he defied horror audience expectations with Hereditary. You can also check out our reviews of Midsommar and Hereditary to see if they’re worth a watch for you.

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Adam Bankhurst is a news writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.