Beau is Afraid: A Script

by Michael Evans

Following the sudden loss of his mother, Beau, a reserved man marked by bad luck and anxiety, embarks on an epic journey to her funeral. As he confronts the depths of his psyche, hegrapples openly with his unique sexual dysfunction.

119 pages, Paperback

Published October 13, 2023

About the author

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Reviews

[Tyler Jenkins]

(2011 script)

Quite interesting how similar the urban sequence is to the final version, and how progressively different each following section is. Would’ve enjoyed the doctor scenes in the suburbs to be included in the final cut, but I suppose they aren’t fully necessary. Very glad the forest segment got transformed, but I’ll forever miss out on Jeeves riding a polar bear, my gosh.

Overall the final version is in fact infinitely better than this draft. Some hilarious stuff got left behind (the original ending along with the celebrity picture stuff is quite absurdly funny), but the final picture is so so so so so much more meaningful and genuinely important. Interesting to see Harry stay the same since 2011!

I do wonder how the Wassermanns (or rather, the Wilmingtons!) would have been different having been Black as originally intended. I know Ari cast Billy Mayo in the original short—was Beau’s race just a byproduct of this, or did he prefer the character Black? I wonder how it would’ve been received. Perhaps people would call him racist again like they did after The Johnsons. Ugh.

[HAUNTER · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rly fascinating differences between the original script and the finished movie. Simply making beau black adds a layers of “get out” vibes and harkens back to asters first short film. I would say it’s definitely more tempered than the film. The script seems to be overtly dealing with trauma and anxiety, whereas the film takes the effects of that trauma and victimization into the inevitable full blown psychosis and breakdown of reality when one goes through *that much*. The most unreality we get in the original script I think is the penis monster in the attic.