A bleakly funny but tedious Freudian trip

HOW MUCH DO YOU REALLY WANT TO KNOW about horrormeister Ari Aster's preoccupations and anxieties? Consider that seriously before subjecting yourself to Beau Is Afraid, a bleak black comedy that's very occasionally hilarious, though mostly just tedious. Joaquin Phoenix stars as bundle of neuroses Beau Wassermann, who's born into this world in the movie's opening scene, escorted by his mother's muffled screams and staticky, ominous-sounding thundercracks.

- STEPHANIE ZACHAREK

Initially, the infant isn't crying, and presumably not breathing; his mother panics, snapping at the doctors. Then we hear a slap and a yowl, and one man's life begins. Fasten your seat belts; it's going to be a bumpy night.

Beau Is Afraid is three hours of one man's dark night of the soul, a howl of pain that occasionally twists itself into a guffaw. After clambering out of the birth canal and growing to middle age-Aster skips large portions of that business, thank GodBeau sits in the office of his shrink (Stephen McKinley Henderson), sharing, in halting language, his feelings about his impending long-distance trip to see his mother. He's OK with it. Or maybe not. Dr. Shrink writes a scrip for a new antianxiety medicine, warning his patient, more than once, to always take it with water.