Warning: This article contains spoilers for Beau and He’s Afraid.by the time Bo afraid In regards to his latest act, Beau (Joaquin Phoenix) learns that his entire life has been controlled, but there have been clues in Ari Aster’s surreal novel all along. Beau has lived a sheltered life hyperfocused on threats from the violent world he imagines outside his apartment, but when his mother dies under mysterious circumstances, he prepares to face his fears to return home. Along the way, he encounters incredibly bizarre situations, and personalities Bo afraid Help shape him into someone who might be able to stand up for himself.
When he arrives at his mother’s house and finds that she has orchestrated her death with the maid’s body, his perception of reality is shattered further. Not only that, but she was given the tapes of her private therapy sessions, just another aspect of his life that she controlled from afar. These revelations shock Beau as much as the audience, who can unearth the threads connecting Beau’s saga with his mother through a series of allusions throughout her home. Once Beau puts the pieces together, he transforms into someone he can challenge her, though it is too late to free him from her manipulation.
6 Bo’s mother owns his apartment building
because Bo afraid From the perspective of Poe, an unreliable narrator, it is difficult to say whether his apartment building is really as run down as it appears. In this case, it is difficult to imagine why he would continue to live in an apartment complex in such a run-down state, crammed with questionable tenants. For Beau, everything outside of his apartment is a hellscape filled with criminals and serial killers, the apartment is his safe place, a stronghold to protect himself from the rest of the world, and it all makes sense once the audience realizes that Beau’s mother owns it.
In his mother’s office, there is a picture of his apartment complex after construction and her company’s logo right next to it. Not only is it the perfect way to keep an eye on her son, but it’s also the perfect place to make him feel dependent after a hard day out in the world. By being responsible for giving him a roof over his head, she can control every aspect of what is supposed to be his safe place, including making him not feel that way with cleverly posted notes from nosy neighbors.
5 Commercial for toothpaste MW
When Roger and Grace take Beau to convalesce at their home after she accidentally hits him with their car, he enjoys days filled with things that go with the traditional family pattern, including sharing family meals together and watching TV in the evenings. At one point, an advertisement for MW’s toothpaste flashes across the screen, after which a hard copy of the advertisement is framed under Beau’s mother’s desk. MW stands for her initials, Mona Wasserman, and there’s even a photo of a young Beau brushing his teeth with it, highlighting her importance to his mother and her company.
Beau does not react to MW’s ad and neither does the audience, but the audience is shocked to see a picture of Beau brushing his teeth with MW’s toothpaste. It’s sandwiched between other framed photos of Beau using MW products, from toothpaste to razors. Evidently, through the company, Beau used something important to maintain his daily life without realizing the extent to which he made his mother subconsciously responsible for his own survival.
4 Channel 78
After the MW toothpaste commercial, when Beau is flipping through the channels, Grace whispers to him to try channel 78. When he finally gets to it, he realizes it’s live footage of where he’s standing in the living room and even somehow has the means to move forward and backward in time. He’s able to watch himself and his movements, and it’s clear that the live recording has been happening on channel 78 since he got home.
Roger and Grace caused the accident that got him home in the first place, and there’s a chance it wasn’t an accident at all. Channel 78, along with Grace’s discreet note to Beau to “not incriminate” himself, suggests that whoever is watching him carefully on the other side of the camera does so for a reason. The only person he is willing to police his behavior is his mother, to whom it becomes clear that Roger and Grace are related.
3 Roger is a former employee of Bo’s mother
When Beau looks at the pictures hanging on the walls of his mother’s office, including one showing the construction of his apartment building, he sees an instantly recognizable face. in one of the Bo is afraid Wild twists. Roger appears in a photo of the staff working for his mother, which is surprising, given that Roger is a supposed surgeon. It is possible that Mona Wasserman’s duties consisted of something else that Bo did not know about.
Although it’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss it, it’s still an integral part of Beau’s understanding that he can never guess how much his mother controls him. Her influence and influence extended to asking Roger to beat her son and take responsibility for carrying him while he recovered, which did not do a good job. Bo should have known his wounds never healed and he always seemed to act worse.
2 The tattooed man who attacks the beau works for his mother
At the start of the movie, after fans learn that Beau is afraid of everything and is on regular medication for his anxiety, he is chased by a heavily tattooed man including black pupils. He made it to his apartment complex before the man could attack him, but the sequence stands out because of the man’s distinctive appearance in a sea of ​​strange characters in Bo afraid. His picture is also on the clerk’s wall in his mother’s office along with Roger’s, indicating that he worked for Mona as well.
It is not outside the realm of possibility to think that Beau’s mother may have been subjected to physical and emotional harassment. She seemed to enjoy punishing him if she felt he wasn’t giving her enough attention. Perhaps throughout his adult life, anytime she felt he should be a more obedient son, she had some staff bash him until he withdrew into the apartment she owned and called, unable to deal with the outside world she had made so terrifying by design.
1 Maintenance worker Bo cleans up at his mother’s funeral
Something that could have alerted the audience to the connection Bo’s mother had to Bo’s living conditions was the maintenance man seen cleaning up after her funeral. He is the same maintenance guy at the Beau Building, and is often seen mopping up the remains of a very violent day. He never answers Beau’s questions or really engages him in conversation, but seems dedicated to making sure that Mona’s various commercial properties are well-kept (even if Beau’s apartment building doesn’t look like it).
Having an informant in Beau’s residence is, like having a therapist for him on her payroll, invasive and Machiavellian. At the end of Bo afraidHis mother explains that he only does what people tell him, and yet she has orchestrated a life in which he fears the outside world so much that he depends on her love and support. She only gives it to him if she feels he’s got it, and it stays conditioned even if it’s not good enough, something Beau finds out too late to make any changes.
