The protagonist of the film, Bo (the brilliant Joaquin Phoenix), is a walking personification of the modern man in the age of anxiety. A man in his early forties lives alone in a disadvantaged area, does not work because he supports a wealthy mother (his father seems to have died in childhood, but this is not certain). A man has a difficult and dependent relationship with his mother. He goes to a psychotherapist regularly, but mostly every day is filled with one thing—intense anxiety.
Under his apartment windows, Bo fears the city’s homeless, a nudist maniac who preys on men only, a poisonous spider in his house, a neighbor, and millions of other things he concocts in his head by plotting the craziest scenarios.
The tragic news of his mother’s sudden death forces Bo to step out of his comfort zone and embark on a journey through America’s backwoods to meet equally bizarre heroes. Getting to know them will give Beau a unique chance to fix his life: learning why he was so traumatized by his mother, uncovering his father’s secret, and freeing himself from the anxiety that is eating away at him.
“Bo’s All Fears” is Ari Astaire’s most radical and extraordinary project, this time trying to understand the causes of fear rather than frightening the audience. Developing his signature style with his previous two hits “Reencarnation” and “Solstice”, Astaire embarks on a new journey as the fictional Bo to achieve his desired goal.
Astaire, apparently aiming to achieve a therapeutic effect, achieved the opposite – “All the Fears of Bo” became a sharp irritant for many viewers. The film is either wholeheartedly accepted or categorically rejected. On the pros and cons of this grotesque story, let’s figure it out.
Why is “All Fears Bo” an important and necessary movie?
From the first minutes of the exaggerated and certainly grotesque narrative, it seems that no one in the new millennium has so convincingly displayed the image of an anxious person filled with their own fears and not 80% water. Joaquin Phoenix’s protagonist is a man with childhood traumas, the intonations of an old man, and the anxiety of a metropolitan resident. Many of their fears suddenly become extreme, but anyone who has had a panic attack knows that it is difficult to deal with them alone.
Bo’s journey in the outside world turns into a journey through the backyards of memory, dreams and fantasy, and his path is like a mirage. Where is the truth in that, where is the fiction? Where is the real Bo of all this and where are the guesses for his account?
Gradually, it became clear that the root cause of his bottomless internal trauma was Bo’s mother. In this way, Astaire’s new painting turns into an important conversation about the painful interdependence of parents and children, the need for separation, and the pain of loss.
The real gem of the movie is Joaquin Phoenix, who seems to have one click to switch from the obnoxious alien Joker who destroys everything in his path with a single click of a finger, to the zatyuk and confused Beau who can’t take decisive action. The character we perceive the story through his eyes is not even aware of how ridiculous the world is in his head. But that’s the fascinating thing.
Astaire presents the horrors in a funny way only. Even the monstrous and dramatic scene where Bo learns of his mother’s death was so filmed that the audience at the premiere burst into laughter, if not at all funny. This radical confrontation between normality and pathology, tragic and comic, painful and healing, is the essence of a story that may surprise those accustomed to sharing all of the above concepts.
Why ‘Bo Fears’ Isn’t The Best Movie
Working in the field of nonsense is always difficult, not only because the audience is not ready for the author’s mental bullying, but also because the author himself can get lost in the complex ways of a fictional world.
On the one hand, Aster, who seems to be guiding himself clearly in the field, tried to fit so much into his film at once that this excess dazzles the eyes and it becomes more and more difficult for the brain to process. information coming in every new hour (and the movie continues 3) and already in the middle I really want to give up.
Returning to the story format, it’s hard to ignore how boldly (or arrogantly) Aster tackles the themes of trauma, pain, and loneliness. Wes Anderson has always tried to face tragedy with a big smile on his face, but even his latest films are nothing more than a tired copy of the more original and original early films.
The fact that Bo’s All Fears comes out when no one is laughing also plays against the movie. This was also felt by the unanimous freezing of the hall at the premiere, the seemingly eccentric, but broken from within, heroes entering the frame, talking about their lost experiences that they could not cope with.
It sets against itself and the finale of the story – chaotic and phantasmagorical. It looks like Bo is about to wake up and everything he sees will be a dream. However, the hero has awakened and this time neither Astaire nor Phoenix has a hidden Joker in their arms. Therefore, the protagonist’s journey turned out to be a ruse: Bo himself and the audience of the film remained in the same confusion and anxiety, as if they had found themselves at the reception of a psychotherapist, which they never succeeded. to find a common language.