Beau Is Afraid

Biggest waste of 3 hours. I was quite literally pulling my hair out watching this. Some thoughts should just remain on paper and don’t need to be translated into film.

8.1 - the key is to shed any & all expectations. This isn’t Aster’s other movies. This is abstract, weird, confusing, ridiculous, upsetting, & funny. It’s not a horror - it’s an absurdist meta comedy. If it can go wrong in Beau’s neurotic mind it will, & that’s the beauty.

Very conflicted about my feelings on this. Overall, thought it was very well put together. But I resent the stories about people who “walked out” of the theatre just as I resent people who call it “genius.” I think it deserves another watch, absolutely, and overall I enjoyed it.

Weird

Any causes or expressions of anxiety, guilt and shame are translated into an allegory on film.

Visually, it’s interesting, stunning, and varied. However, its absurdity made me feel stupid, and not in a good way.

Just over two hours in, some of the connections did start to fall into place. Which brings me to wondering whether a three hour runtime was necessary (it definitely wasn’t).

Throughout the movie, I was rooting for Beau to grow some balls figuratively. But I guess he couldn’t because of his literal ones, which I suppose makes sense. Phoenix is also very one note throughout the whole thing which may be intentional but gets tiring.

I’ve liked most of Ari Aster’s stuff, but this was very convoluted and just wasn’t it for me.

Beau Is Afraid