I’m being told that Ari Aster’s “Disappointment Blvd” is set for a Cannes Film Festival world premiere. This would easily make the upcoming A24 film one of the most anticipated titles of this coming May’s 75th edition of the prestigious festival.
Ari Aster wrapped filming “Disappointment Boulevard” in Montreal last summer. Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Ryan, Michael Gandolfini, Nathan Lane and Parker Posey are set to star in the mysterious film which originally went by the title of “Beau is Afraid.”
In 2011, Aster directed a short film titled “Beau.” Described as a “surrealist horror film set in an alternate present,” Phoenix’s character would play an “extremely anxious but pleasant-looking man who has a fraught relationship with his overbearing mother and never knew his father.” When his mother dies, he makes a journey home that involves some wild supernatural threats.
Ari Aster turned heads at Sundance 2018 with his incredibly realized neo-horror film “Hereditary.” The following year he polarized movie fans with his love/hate statement “Midsommar,” a film I was lukewarm on, upon initial viewing, until I finally caught up with the 3-hour director’s cut at home and had a total 180 opinion reversal.
Back to Cannes, new films by Kelly Reichardt, Joanna Hogg, Ruben Ostlund, The Dardennes, Hirokazu Kore-eda, David Cronenberg, Park Chan-wook, Cristian Mungiu and James Gray are also expected to be part of this year’s competition.