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Beau Is Afraid First Reviews: Ambitious, Uncomfortable, and Just as Funny as it is Terrifying

Critics say Ari Aster's latest won't be for everyone, but it's a bold, uncompromising odyssey that will make you laugh, recoil, and scratch your head in equal measure.

by Christopher Campbell | April 11, 2023 | Comments

Joaquin Phoenix stars in Beau Is Afraid, the highly anticipated third feature from writer-director Ari Aster, and it’s an ambitious effort for both actor and filmmaker that may or may not satisfy their fans. The mind-bending three-hour psychological drama is a lot different from Aster’s previous movies, Hereditary and Midsommar, and while its early reviews are more mixed, most critics agree that it’s too original and takes too many big swings for audiences to pass it by. And if you truly want to appreciate the whole experience, you’ll need to see it more than once.

Here’s what critics are saying about Beau Is Afraid:

How does it compare to Ari Aster’s other movies?

Fans of Aster’s feature films are in for a bit of a shock as this is nothing like what he’s done before.
– Mary Beth McAndrews, Dread Central

While it still has some thematic ties to his first two films (mothers!), Beau Is Afraid is unlike anything Aster has created.
– Sophia Ciminello, AwardsWatch

Like both Hereditary and Midsommar, the film revels in parental issues, strange communities, inexplicable situations, severe head trauma, and scary attics.
– Chris Evangelista, Slashfilm

Beau Is Afraid is so distinct from Aster’s other films and ends on such a bewildering note that it’s more than likely to throw quite a few people for loops they aren’t expecting.
– Charles Pulliam-Moore, The Verge

Beau Is Afraid is more exciting than Aster’s debut and sophomore features. and not just because it’s more ambitious.
– Brianna Zigler, Paste Magazine

[It] might be the most terrifying film he’s made so far.
– David Ehrlich, IndieWire

Joaquin Phoenix in Beau Is Afraid (2023)

(Photo by ©A24)

Is it a horror movie?

Beau is not a horror film, [but] there’s plenty of the horrific here to knock us for a loop. Beau is afraid, and you will be, too.
– Chris Evangelista, Slashfilm

It’s fueled more by anxiety than terrifying dread, which may temper its appeal to hardcore horror consumers.
– David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

The film certainly has its scary moments.
– Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair

The horror here isn’t in decapitations, but in the anxiety-inducing saga Aster takes us on.
– Mary Beth McAndrews, Dread Central

It’s a different kind of horror, one that will challenge, alienate and push people out of their comfort zones.
– Matt Neglia, Next Best Picture

Is it funny?

It’s more of a comedy than a horror film, though its epic sprawl is fretful and unhappy.
– Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair

As a “comedy,” Beau is Afraid starts out fine and actually has more than a few amusing moments.
– Edward Douglas, The Weekend Warrior

Aster leans all the way into the funny bone he was wont to exhibit in his seemingly ultra-austere first features.
– Brianna Zigler, Paste Magazine

Here is a movie that defaults to being tense in the service of being funny, as opposed to being funny in the service of creating tension.
– David Ehrlich, IndieWire

What makes Beau Is Afraid such a riveting watch is that it’s funny and terrifying in equal measure, often in the same moments.
– Siddhant Adlakha, IGN Movies

Horror and comedy are flip sides of the same coin, confronting taboos en route to catharsis, and detail-oriented Aster seems uniquely wired to meld the two disciplines.
– Peter Debruge, Variety

The auteur makes horror and humor two sides of the same coin from the jump… [It] innovatively teeters on a razor-sharp edge between fear and cringe-com.
– Courtney Howard, Fresh Fiction

(Photo by ©A24)

What can we really expect from the viewing experience?

It’s a hilarious, tense, and all-around transformative experience.
– Mary Beth McAndrews, Dread Central

At times, it feels more like a perplexing exercise in stylistic punishment for Aster to understand better how far he can push his audience.
– Matt Neglia, Next Best Picture

It’s generally inaccessible and hard to enjoy.
– Edward Douglas, The Weekend Warrior

Aster’s past films have their own punishing qualities, but Beau is a new test of patience and endurance. If this film is an act of talk therapy, it’s a scream session.
– Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair

Beau Is Afraid is a challenge in that its exploration of terror doesn’t allow you the reprieve typically provided in horror.
– Kristy Puchko, Mashable

If you’re not left hyperventilating, you’d better check your pulse to make sure you’re not dead.
– Courtney Howard, Fresh Fiction

At points, it’s a stress-watch to rival the Safdie bros’ nerve-shredder Uncut Gems.
– Jordan Farley, Total Film

What else can we compare it to?

Beau Is Afraid is like if a Woody Allen protagonist was the Griffin Dunne character in Martin Scorsese’s After Hours.
– Brianna Zigler, Paste Magazine

It starts out paying homage to Martin Scorsese’s After Hours before shifting into Charlie Kaufman mode with a liberal splash or two of Cronenbergian grotesquerie.
– David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

The film feels inspired by everything from Kafka to Albert Brooks to Charlie Kaufman’s postmodern masterpiece, Synecdoche, New York.
– Sophia Ciminello, AwardsWatch

Like Kaufman, Aster seems preoccupied with fears of mortality and nettled by his tortured relationships with women, all the while cowed by the vast and messy mechanics of the world. Also like Kaufman, Aster can let his free-wheeling ambition get the best of him.
– Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair

It’s a movie in which Aster has surrendered some of his own originality and distinction for an indulgent, derivative flourish that seems to pastiche Charlie Kaufman or Darren Aronofsky’s crazy Mother! or maybe even Richard Kelly’s much controverted Southland Tales.
– Peter Bradshaw, Guardian

Aster molds his own iteration of The 40-Year-Old Virgin.
– Courtney Howard, Fresh Fiction

Beau Is Afraid is Ari Aster’s answer to The Truman Show.
– Kristy Puchko, Mashable

(Photo by ©A24)

How is Joaquin Phoenix’s performance?

Joaquin Phoenix proves once again why he’s not only one of the best actors of his generation but one of the very best of all time.
– Matt Neglia, Next Best Picture

Joaquin Phoenix goes balls to the wall in a performance of astonishing intensity that holds nothing back… a performance as fully, insanely committed as any he’s ever given.
– David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

He anchors this movie like the bulb at the center of a shadow lamp, illuminating the rotating funhouse of different fears that Aster spins around him.
– David Ehrlich, IndieWire

Joaquin Phoenix, coming off an Oscar win in Joker, is in charge of a character that is even more disturbing to spend three hours with, if you can imagine that.
– Pete Hammond, Deadline Hollywood Daily

Phoenix [is] not tested as an actor in any way, content to coast through the movie like the Joker on Zoloft.
– Peter Bradshaw, Guardian

This is an intensely demanding performance that thrusts the heralded actor through mind-snapping scenarios, one after another, as well as pushing him physically.
– Kristy Puchko, Mashable

Phoenix’s performance is incredibly frustrating, which here is a positive thing.
– Mary Beth McAndrews, Dread Central

Is it difficult to understand?

Beau Is Afraid seldom offers clarity as to what’s real or unreal, but it remains in lockstep with the ways birth, sex, aging, and death become scrambled into an anxious continuum in Beau’s mind.
– Siddhant Adlakha, IGN Movies

This film rewards moviegoers who have a keen eye for detail and the patience for a jigsaw puzzle of a story.
– Julia Glassman, The Mary Sue

This isn’t a movie that is easy to describe, much less digest.
– Pete Hammond, Deadline Hollywood Daily

This is a film that begs for conversation and analysis and plenty of pondering. And it’s more accessible than you might think, despite all the lunacy.
– Chris Evangelista, Slashfilm

Beau Is Afraid is perhaps one of the best representations of intrusive thoughts I’ve ever seen on screen.
– Mary Beth McAndrews, Dread Central

(Photo by ©A24)

Will it require multiple viewings?

Beau Is Afraid is an exhausting experience with too many details to take in in one sitting alone, but that’s also the point.
– Sophia Ciminello, AwardsWatch

There are so many gags that Beau is Afraid all but demands you see it more than once (despite its three-hour runtime) to take them all in.
– Chris Evangelista, Slashfilm

How is the length?

At nearly three hours, Beau Is Afraid suffers from an exceedingly long runtime… [and] excruciating pacing.
– Matt Neglia, Next Best Picture

You get the feeling that Aster could have made two or three tight, engrossing psychological portraits instead of one bloated one.
– Julia Glassman, The Mary Sue

There’s absolutely no reason why Beau is Afraid had to be nearly three hours long.
– Edward Douglas, The Weekend Warrior

Three hours doesn’t feel at all reasonable for such an uneven collection of sketches.
– Peter Debruge, Variety

It moves at an almost-breakneck pace, so don’t let the three-hour runtime deter you. This film is never ever boring, to the point that it is borderline overwhelming.
– Mary Beth McAndrews, Dread Central

We’re never bored — how can we be? The film is so chaotic and relentless that, like Beau, we have no choice but to get carried along.
– Chris Evangelista, Slashfilm

Should we just give it a shot?

It’s the kind of movie worth recommending for its ambition alone.
– Siddhant Adlakha, IGN Movies

As a journey into outré excess that’s entirely on-brand for A24, it demands to be seen.
– David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

If you’re willing, take [Aster’s] hand and be transported into a world of pure neurotic imagination.
– Mary Beth McAndrews, Dread Central

At a time when safe-bet sequels, franchise extensions, and movies built on brand recognition are more prevalent than ever, the fact that something so singular exists and succeeds on its own terms is something to be celebrated.
– Jordan Farley, Total Film