After an initial positive, albeit a what-the-hell-did-I-just-see response, critics are starting to come around to the fact that Ari Aster’s “Beau is Afraid” is a big resounding swing with lots of flaws.
A24’s latest lovechild currently has a 61 on Metacritic and sits at 74% on Rotten Tomatoes. That’s more than fair.
I’ve now seen the film twice and the second time the flaws started to show a little more. It’s impossible not to appreciate the film’s ambitions, but it’s also one hot mess of a movie, especially in its second half.
‘Beau’ clocks in at 3 hours and you do feel the runtime, especially in the very messy second half. It’s no doubt a true original, with barely any semblance of plot, but it’s also indulgently derivative — a sort of hybrid of Aronofsky’s “mother!” and Kaufman’s “Synecdoche, NY.”
I loved, loved, LOVED the film’s first hour, depicting an utterly fascinating urban world of decay, violence and mayhem. Everywhere Beau goes, he’s met with danger, especially in his grimy neighbourhood that has people murdering each other in broad daylight. We start to question how seriously we should be taking not just the setting, but the entire film as well.
It’s when the film starts taking itself more seriously in the second hour that Aster loses his grip on us. This is a film that needed at least 30 minutes cut from its original runtime.
Ambitious and audacious, yes, ‘Beau’ certainly is that. There are some really affecting moments of sheer brazen energy and Aster sneaks in a few wonderful visual gags, but the film does not add up. It’s rather shallow in its insistence that it’s more profound than it actually is.
You can love and respect this film for what it is, but it does start to play like a cruel joke.