Aster reinvents his wheel of perverse creativity with this epic three-hour odyssey as a man (Joaquin Phoenix in a fantastic performance) suffering from chronic anxiety and the inability to take responsibility embarks on a Freudian journey of self-confrontation.
Review #2,968
Dir. Ari Aster
2023 | USA | Drama, Comedy | 179min | 1.85:1 | English
R21 (passed clean) for strong violent content, sexual content, graphic nudity, drug use and language
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Patti LuPone, Amy Ryan, Nathan Lane, Kylie Rogers
Plot: Following the sudden death of his mother, a mild-mannered but anxiety-ridden man confronts his darkest fears as he embarks on an epic, Kafkaesque odyssey back home.
Awards: Nom. for Best Leading Actor – Comedy/Musical (Golden Globes)
International Sales: A24
Accessibility Index
Subject Matter: Slightly Mature – Personal Odyssey; Chronic Anxieties; Trauma
Narrative Style: Slightly Complex
Pace: Slightly Slow
Audience Type: Cult Mainstream
Viewed: Netflix
Spoilers: No
Already three features in, Ari Aster has grown into a filmmaker of considerable repute. From terrifying horror with Hereditary (2018) to the modern cult classic Midsommar (2019), and now Beau Is Afraid, Aster has so far reinvented his wheel of perverse creativity with each project.
Starring Joaquin Phoenix in a fantastic performance as Beau, a middle-aged man who suffers from chronic anxiety, Beau Is Afraid has in its first forty minutes what could be some of the most formidable filmmaking on show for some time.
Living in an ultra-hostile city filled with violent, cussing madmen, where even a minute’s walk to a minimart opposite his residence feels more intense than the Normandy sequence in Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan (1998), it is easy to sympathise with Beau.
When he learns that his beloved mother has died in the most bizarre fashion, he sets off to attend her funeral, but not before embarking on the most surreal journey any man can make without going insane.
“I have searched for my family all my life, to the end of my life, and I’m still alone.”
It’s a wonder Beau didn’t suffer from a cardiac arrest at any time in Aster’s epic three-hour Freudian odyssey of self-confrontation, featuring some of the darkest thematic material to hit an A24 film.
Because of its admittedly indulgent length and mature content—there is even a mid-film animation sequence that goes off-tangent in a warped way—Beau Is Afraid won’t be for everyone.
Yet it is also quite easy to be swept by the ebb and flow of Aster’s storytelling, with Phoenix’s somewhat shy, introverted and mild-mannered characterisation giving the film an amusing counterpoint.
A film about the struggle to take responsibility when the entire world seems to be against you, Beau Is Afraid is beautiful, wild, absurd, frightening and ultimately, soul-crushing. It is quite a miracle that something like this even got financed.
Grade: A-
Trailer:
Music:
Eternality Tan 
[…] love Eddington as much as his similarly divisive Beau Is Afraid (2023)—in fact, I think both films reveal Aster to be a maturing filmmaker who is very much […]
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