Dir. Ari Aster | Now Streaming On: Prime | Rating: 1/5

Can someone call Ari Aster’s mom? He keeps making these Freudian films about unprocessed parental grief and sex. Is this a cry for help? Somebody help him. 

Before I get into this, for what it’s worth, I really tried to go into this optimistically. Maybe that made it worse, because though this got a few laughs out of me, it was painful to watch this entire film. 

Beau is Afraid is a fantasy style “tragicomedy,” a word I didn’t know even existed before researching this film. It should be known that though there’s some horrifying subject matter and imagery in this, it’s not a horror film. This is an obnoxiously long video essay on grief. And is by all accounts – gluttonous.

Outlandish, absurd, and excruciatingly long, this is another example of arthouse at its worst. This film is visually and artistically impressive, utilizing several mediums from storyboards to costuming across the runtime to set the fantasy vibe. It feels like a child with a new box of crayons – let’s use every single thing we’ve got in here just because we can.

I took a 20 minute break halfway through this film to muster up the inner strength to finish it. The moment they started talking about people missing heads it took everything in me not to throw the remote across the room. How full of yourself do you need to be to make the running joke of your movie about YOUR OTHER MOVIE? Some of the dark comedy here does land, which seems to be Aster’s strength. I will give Aster the credit for sticking to his bit and his brand, he is unabashed and unashamed to tell the story he wants, regardless of its cohesiveness. 

Any semblance of a grief narrative is lost in this horrible acid trip. This nauseatingly Freudian. Nailing every filmboi aesthetic to the T. I can’t believe that A24 couldn’t predict this box office bomb. Dare I say, you should watch Hereditary before you even THINK about watching this. Avoid at all costs.

Know Before You Watch: Blood, death, nudity, drug use, suicide, gun violence, sex.