Beau Is Afraid

Beau Is Afraid is all clatter and stress and movement, but the director is in control throughout, engineering both comic set pieces and existential show trials with equal invention.

It’s the kind of movie worth recommending for its ambition alone, merely to witness the audacious result of anxious self-loathing writ large across the silver screen, without an ounce of restraint. That it’s also a remarkably well-crafted horror-comedy is a cherry on top.

It’s Phoenix who keeps you glued even through the film’s sometimes challenging longueurs, in a performance as fully, insanely committed as any he’s ever given. If the character invites more cringing pity than emotional investment, that’s more to do with the distancing effect of Aster’s surreal approach than anything lacking in Phoenix’s raw, gaping wound of a characterization.

Whatever LuPone is doing, it’s undeniable. Here, long into a meandering and fitfully rewarding film, is something worthy of fear—or maybe it’s awe.

It’s not an entirely unpleasant journey, but the film does have a jarring, unfinished feel to it, and while the detail-oriented might find it novel to unpack its myriad cinematic homages, and Aster’s ambitious execution is worthy of celebration, ultimately it’s an uneven ride, particularly given the incredible talent involved.

To set up the movie’s cagey diminution of the protagonist, Aster diminishes the protagonist’s world, too—he suppresses Beau’s identity in the interest of stoking synthetic effects and inflating a hollow and shallow spectacle.

Beau Is Afraid relies on subverting expectations so frequently that its twists become predictable, if not rote.

Шикарнейший, мощный фильм! Каждую секунду восхищаешься тому, как автор может передавать такие сильные эмоции душевно больного человека! Шедевр!!!!!

"Beau Is Afraid" starts really strong. Everything that happens in and around his apartment is stimulating and entertaining on so many levels that it's a real joy. The next stop on his odyssey to himself(?), in the house of Nathan Lane and his family, is also a lot of fun. In other words: The first hour of Beau meets the high expectations of an Ari Aster film.Then we go into the forest to a theater performance and from here on the abstract elements and symbolism come more and more to the fore. We experience an odyssey within an odyssey, this form of meta-commentary was already touched on an episode earlier, and after a very long segment there is still a lot of film left. And from the 90 minute to 2 hour mark, time suddenly seems to flow in slow **** addition, the final part of the journey, firstly, upsets a lot on a plot level and destroys the magic of the film a little; secondly, it becomes far too intellectual, unfocused and unsatisfying; and thirdly, the boredom is really noticeable. To be honest, I fell asleep in the last five minutes, but that seems to have happened to the film itself too.Conclusion: It starts off strong, but then falls apart after a third and doesn't really make you think.

One of the weirdest but most unique movies i've ever seen. It doesn't hit on all notes but worth a watch.

Not my cup of tea. It goes nowhere at a snails pace. The movie is way too long. There are some very long sequences that served no purpose. Acting was fine. Story wise it just isn't there. Not a fan of throwing in outlandish concepts / visuals for the sake of it.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]