Beau is Afraid – A Movie Review

Reviewed By JP 

Hey folks! It’s been a while but, in the time it’s taken for this writer to rest and restore his mental health, there’ve been some gems to review. 

This week’s is “Beau Is Afraid.” Distributed in 2023 by A24 and directed by the equally amazing Ari Aster, it is a film about—you guessed it—a mental health crisis. Particularly explored are Beau’s many fears, as well as the trappings of his anxiety, as brought on by society and his repressed childhood experiences of mental abuse.  

The titular character is played by none other than Joaquin Phoenix. In a world, which he perceives as one of terrible uncertainty and endless violence, Beau survives by ritualizing his antisocial behavior, talking with his therapist, and avoiding everyone except his mother.  

You proud apprentices of Freud should stand up and let yourselves be heard. This one was made for you. The film was written beautifully to encompass every form of dark hilarity, from its cynical interpretations of marketing to its artfully earnest insights into the mind of someone who is suffering. The picture of these post-pandemic times is referenced heavily and yet stylized only slightly to present the backdrop to “Beau Is Afraid.” In truth, the film makes as much fun of how humanity devolved, in certain zones of the American Northwest as well as within the vacuum of isolation, as it does the growing number of conspiracy theories, now common amongst the people who’ve watched our planet slip slowly into insanity. 

Pause for frantic panting to subside. Then, laugh out loud before you cry of sympathetic pains, because this film is gonna make you love and feel for Beau as much as laugh at him.  

“Beau Is Afraid” is not for the kids, but it is for the kid in every adult who’s had experience with the guilt and shame that come of being abused.