Film

Beau Is Afraid

Name: Beau Is Afraid
Genre: Comedy, Adventure, Fantasy
Released: 2023
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Patti LuPone, Amy Ryan, Nathan Lane, Kylie Rogers

Drama
Strange

Ari Aster's baroque nightmare-comedy about a nervous man journeying home after his mother's death. Nearly three hours of gorgeous, grotesque, deliberately artificial production design; Joaquin Phoenix in full anxiety mode; jokes that land in the margins between funny and disturbing. For people who want cinema to feel like a fever dream, and who think anxiety is fascinating material.

TMDb rating

3.4

If you liked this

The Lighthouse2019

Two men slowly unraveling in close quarters, deliberately theatrical performances, sumptuous black-and-white cinematography, and a script that luxuriates in madness. Eggers does operatic dread better than almost anyone.

But Nearly two and a half hours of two guys yelling at each other in a confined space. The repetition is the point, but the point gets old fast for some viewers.

Synecdoche, New York2008

Kaufman's only directed feature: a maze of nested realities, Philip Seymour Hoffman spiraling through grief and creative paralysis, sets that dwarf the characters. Same fever-dream logic, slightly more emotional core.

But Genuinely difficult to parse. You might spend more energy decoding it than enjoying it, and the decoding might not pay off.

Everything Everywhere All at Once2022

Maximalist filmmaking about anxiety and family obligation, but with warmth underneath. Chaotic editing and genre-hopscotch that somehow adds up to something moving. Proof you can go completely insane and still land the ending.

But The tonal whiplash is constant and intentional. If you need a film to settle into a groove, this isn't it.

Everything Everywhere All at Once poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Beau Is Afraid

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

A Ghost Story2017

Both films use extreme production design and the protagonist's inability to move or escape as a way of literalizing internal states. Both are about being trapped by circumstance and desire.

David Lowery's meditation on time, loss, and being trapped in a space. C and Rooney Mara; Beau is a ghost in his own life, and this explores that literally. Haunting in both senses. Only 92 minutes but feels much longer.

But The entire middle section is one long shot of a figure in a white sheet watching. It's transcendent or tedious depending on your patience for formal experiment.

Mulholland Drive2001

Lynch's Los Angeles nightmare is surreal without winking at you about it. Laura Harring and Naomi Watts in a love story that collapses midway through. The atmosphere alone could sustain you for three hours.

But The second half isn't a resolution; it's a deconstruction. Some people find that liberating; others find it infuriating.

The Holy Mountain1973

Jodorowsky's hallucinogenic spiritual odyssey: surrealism as both comedy and metaphor, gorgeous grotesquerie, a protagonist on an actual journey that never feels literal. Genuinely unhinged in ways Aster clearly worships.

But Extremely weird and extremely Chilean. The pacing is glacial. There is real animal death on screen that serves no narrative purpose.

Hereditary2018

Aster's first film: dread as architecture, family trauma as horror, Toni Collette giving a masterclass in barely-contained panic. If you haven't seen it, this is the prerequisite to understanding where Beau came from.

But The horror is psychological but feels physical. It sits on your chest. Some viewers find it grueling rather than engaging.

Stalker1979

Tarkovsky's philosophical science-fiction meditation on desire and journey. Glacial pacing, impossibly gorgeous compositions, and the sound design alone makes it feel like you're inside a thought. Pure cinema.

But Stalker requires patience most people don't have. At 163 minutes it moves like concrete. If contemplation isn't your love language, it's a slog.

The Fabelmans2022

Spielberg's intimate semi-autobiographical film about a nervous teenage filmmaker. Gabriel LaBelle is excellent as a young man who processes the world through a camera. Warmer than Beau but examining similar themes of maternal anxiety.

But Structurally conventional for Spielberg. If you want formal experimentation, it's too domestic and straightforward.

Phantom Thread2017

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The Happiness of the Katakuris2002

Both use comedy and artifice to process family dysfunction and death. Both leap genres within a single scene. Both feel like nothing else you'll watch.

Takashi Miike's bizarre musical-comedy about a family running a bed-and-breakfast where guests keep dying. Incompatible tones crashing together (musicals, gore, sentiment, absurdity), but it all somehow works. Joyful chaos.

But It's a Japanese horror-comedy with stop-motion animated sequences. If you need cultural and tonal consistency, you will hate this.

The Lobster2015

Both use deliberately artificial worlds and matter-of-fact dialogue to explore anxiety and social obligation. Both treat the absurd as completely normal, which is where the real horror lives.

Yorgos Lanthimos's deadpan absurdist fable: a man has 45 days to find a romantic partner or he'll be transformed into an animal. Colin Farrell's performance is restrained and hilarious. Perfect tonal control of the ridiculous.

But The humor is so dry and strange it barely registers as comedy. Long stretches feel flat. The emotional payoff is minimal.