Only the third feature film by A24 director Ari Aster, whose previous two movies - Hereditary and Midsommar - I enjoyed a lot, in a twisted way. I watched Beau Is Afraid in the theater on Tuesday. What a fucked-up rollercoaster of a movie. I’m surprised there’s not a thread on it already, actually.
It’s like if John Irving, Anthony Burgess, Philip Roth and David Lynch all split a gallon of Robotussin, and Ari Aster was taking the minutes.
So…with that being said…it’s worth a discussion, if anyone else has caught it.
I haven’t seen it, nor have I even heard of it. But I’m now intrigued…
Yes, watched it tonight, knowing nothing about it going in. Oh, it’s that guy who plays those damaged characters. Yikes, here’s another one! Beau certainly is afraid, and if I lived in his neighborhood (Tucker Carlson couldn’t imagine a scarier version of Big City Crime) I’d be terrified. Things start going wrong when he desperately needs a drink of water and his apartment suddenly gets the plumbing shut off.
Watching it I kept flashing on certain touchstones, including O Lucky Man (he escapes bad situations only to stumble into worse ones), Kurt Vonnegut novels, The Wizard of Oz, Mommie Dearest, Zontar the Thing From Venus (huh?), and others I won’t name so’s not to ruin it for you. Joaquin Phoenix is a nervous wreck through most of it. Will he survive? Watch it and find out.
It’s available for home viewing and I just saw it.
Holy cow, what a movie. Yikes, what a movie. I have no words for it. I actually would criticize it in the middle for being unnecessarily long. The entire play sequence was dragged out way too much.
I would break the movie down like this:
Hour 1 - Yep, very good. Well made, I’m interested in this.
Hour 2 - Very hit and miss. Some flaws in this section of the movie, the play part being the worst.
Hour 3 - Holy crap. Outstanding and horrific. I will never forget it. Amazing.
Overall, it’s a great achievement, but I think it did not need to be the full three hours.
Note: Has anyone checked on Ari Aster? Is…is he…OK? So many psychological questions to ask this man. I imagine essays will be written about this movie for many years to come.
It’s near the top of my “best of” list so far in 2023 despite its flaws.
Netflix, Prime, Hulu, other?
Only rental or buying at the common sites. No included streaming yet.
The movie would have been better off if that part was cut. It totally wrecked the pacing, and it didn’t really add anything to the plot.
This was not a three hour movie and yet it was for some reason. It was a very good 2 hour and 15 minute movie that Aster was allowed to release not edited down.
Hey, so I’ll ask what may be obvious to everyone:
Was everything staged by his Mother? This is what I’m hearing. I presume the stuff up in the attic(twin brother and monster father) was real, but everything else was fully staged to get him to that point?
Bong Joon-ho posted this and it made me laugh. I don’t think I’m the only one asking, “Is Ari Aster OK?” after seeing this movie. 
I finally got to see it yesterday, after eagerly anticipating it for months. I knew it would be weird - it’s Ari Aster for crying out loud - and I like weird. But this, this was three hours of total unpleasantness. Joaquin Phoenix plays another damaged soul, and in fact I was reminded of Joker more than once. His torment and despair is relentless, so much so that I wasn’t able to fully enjoy the good elements.
It appears to be one of those films that merits multiple viewings but I don’t think I can go through it again. I still think Aster is a phenomenal filmmaker and will watch whatever he comes up with next, but this one was almost . . .offensive to me.
Not offensive, but I really don’t think he needs to be making three hour movies. I mean, trim this thing down to 2 hours and 15 minutes, you would have a much stronger movie. Eliminate the entire play section of this movie, which should been done in the script phase.
I liked everything up to the play and I loved the “attic scene” and the tension building up to that. I would also amend the ending on the little boat, which seemed out of place and weird to me.
I dunno, it has its big moments, but I swear this was not a three hour movie.