With the one-two punch of Hereditary (2018) and Midsommar (2019), Ari Aster endeared himself to lovers of horror, the art-house, and all things bizarre. After a three-year hiatus, he will return this year with Disappointment Blvd. (2022), the sprawling story of a successful entrepreneur starring Joaquin Phoenix. The cast also includes names as big as Nathan Lane, Meryl Streep, Stephen McKinley Henderson, and Richard Kind. Aster is set to co-produce with Midsommar producer Lars Knudsen, and the film will be distributed by A24.
No official release date has been announced, and very little is known about the film. However, the little we do know is enough to get us excited for what will no doubt be an uncompromising descent into anxiety, madness, ambition, and despair — in other words, another classic Ari Aster flick. In terms of a release date, there is a high probability that the film may only be available for viewing in 2023. Despite the film wrapping up production, director Ari Aster told French newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche in June 2022:
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Will this film be another anxiety-ridden horror flick, making use of the genre’s sandbox to plunge us into transgressive psychological spaces? Or will it mark a new chapter in Aster’s budding filmography (one that will have no trouble disturbing its audience without the assistance of horror tropes)? What is the film really about?
“In reality, the post-production is not finished, I do not even have the final editing. I still have work to do on sound and visual effects. I doubt I’m done for the September festivals.”
Updated July 2022 by Jessica Peerez: If you are excited about Ari Aster’s Disappointment Blvd., you’ll be happy to know we’ve updated this article with additional info.
What We Know So Far: Genre
A24
Little is known about Disappointment Blvd.’s story or genre. According to Wikipedia, it is a horror/comedy, though it’s difficult to know if this is confirmed or mere speculation. In a 2019 Reddit AMA, Aster said he planned to follow Midsommar with a four-hour “nightmare comedy.” There has been speculation that Aster was referring to Beau is Afraid, a leaked script about an anxiety-ridden man with mommy issues.
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If Disappointment Blvd. marks Aster’s return to this material, it will not be his first time diving into its twisted world. In 2011, Aster released Beau, an eleven-minute variation on the story and themes of Beau is Afraid (this film, along with most of Aster’s short filmography, is readily available on YouTube). Like the feature-length script, Beau (2011) resists classification in terms of genre and narrative structure. Its plot contains elements of Repulsion (1965), Home Alone (1990), and Duck Soup (1933). In other words, the short straddles the lines between horror, thriller, and slapstick without ever giving the audience the relief of settling into a singular mode.
Aster’s Approach to Genre
Whether Disappointment Blvd. is a retitled Beau is Afraid, or an entirely new screenplay remains to be seen. Either way, it is unlikely that the film will be a typical horror/comedy, if it is a horror/comedy at all. There is no doubt that Ari Aster can make a soil-your-pants scary movie — but it was clear from the beginning that his ambitions stretched beyond any one genre.
For all its haunted house shenanigans, Hereditary is a gut-churning melodrama that deals with grief, trauma, and inherited dysfunction. On one level, Midsommar is classic folk horror, replete with American tourists, pagan rites, and human sacrifice — but Aster knows that we know the formula and allows much of the horror to play out in the background, focussing instead on the faltering relationship between its protagonists. Thus, the film becomes as much about co-dependence and cultural attitudes towards empathy as the ancient vs. modern conflict intrinsic to the genre.
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This genre playfulness traces back to Aster’s short work, which balanced the twisted, the macabre, and the whimsical. The Strange Thing About the Johnsons (2011) is a non-PC shock comedy played straight, with genuine empathy for its characters. It morphs into a jaw-dropping horror of epic proportions without ever quite giving up the sick humor inherent in its premise (if you are unfamiliar with the controversial film, it is a Google search away — but be forewarned: it is not for the faint of heart). Similarly, Munchhausen (2013) mimics the tender-hearted, wordless structure of a Pixar short — until it descends into a comically morbid rumination on the harm, we do to the people we love. Aster’s other shorts live well outside the horror box, ranging from monologue films to neo-noir, though they too take an anarchic approach to the genre.
All this is to say that whatever story Disappointment Blvd. follows, it will almost certainly resist classification. Will it be a horror film? Perhaps — but certainly not in any conventional sense. Aster may have carved out a niche for himself in the world of art-horror, but his cinematic tastes are eclectic. He has written and spoken passionately about auteurs as disparate as Ingmar Bergman and Albert Brooks. With the boundaries he’s already pushed in his genre films, it’s reasonable to assume that he’ll eventually burst out of the genre altogether.
What We Know So Far: Story
The little that is known about Disappointment Blvd.’s story — that it takes place across decades and follows a successful entrepreneur — suggests less of a gore fest and more of a tale of ambition, success, and disappointment. In genre terms, this would place it in line with American epics focussing on the individual’s rise (and fall) in a capitalist state (a sizable and diverse sub-genre including Scarface (1983), There Will Be Blood (2007), The Social Network (2010), and more).
This does not mean that the film will not verge into the realm of the horrifying (There Will Be Blood spends large chunks of its runtime playing as a horror film, in large part thanks to the score by Johnny Greenwood) — only that its horror will most likely not come from specters or murder cults. Which, for an Ari Aster fan, should be no problem at all — though his absurd violence and chilling imagery sparkle, the real source of dread is always human frailty and existential despair. This is what makes his films truly frightening, and it is not a source of horror that needs the archetypes of the horror genre.
Whatever shape Disappointment Blvd. ultimately takes, it will no doubt be a provocative and unclassifiable dive into the recesses of the human psyche — and film lovers will be the better for it.
