I am willing to bet that Ari Aster’s “Beau is Afraid” will get an F CinemaScore. I believe it would be the first time that this has happened since 2017’s “mother!” Both films, indulgently personal statements, would actually make for a deadly double-bill.
The review embargo is still very much intact for ‘Beau.’ It’ll be released this coming Friday. That hasn’t stopped Alonso Duralde and Christy Lemire from sharing some very quick, out-of-the-theater thoughts.
They’re not exactly sure what they saw and that’s kind of where I’m at with this one. Aster's previous films, "Hereditary" and "Midsommar,” cannot prepare you for ‘Beau.’ As I said a week ago, this movie will MESS YOU UP.
This is what happens when a mentally unstable filmmaker is given $40 million to make whatever the hell he wants. Hey, I’m not complaining, but it confirms that Aster has definitely gone down the deep end here.
A fair warning to all critics who decide to recommend ‘Beau’ in their reviews: be prepared for lots of hate mail from the basic average moviegoer. They will not be happy. This is a movie with no discernible plot from a filmmaker that one might now easily qualify as a madman. Oh, and it runs 3 hours.
In 2011, Aster directed a short film titled “Beau,” which this film is based on. I don’t think there’s a way to watch it online since it was pulled a few months ago from YouTube.
Described as a “decades-spanning surrealist horror film set in an alternate present,” Phoenix’s character plays an “extremely anxious but pleasant-looking man who has a fraught relationship with his overbearing mother and never knew his father.” When his mother comes “calling”, he makes a journey home that involves some wild supernatural threats.
“Beau is Afraid” earned an “R” Rating for “Strong Violence and Graphic Nudity”. It opens in New York and Los Angeles April 14, then everywhere April 21.