One man's journey into madness as he battles paranoia, anxiety, major mommy issues, guilt, childhood trauma, fear, mania... ***Beau Is Afraid*** is basically 100 symbolisms and metaphors per minute, to the point where I don't believe anyone can really decipher it fully (except for Ari Aster himself). The narrative is dense and goes into the convoluted and abstract territory but it's incredibly ambicious. Too ambicious? I support Aster for not being afraid and doing something unique and different but this was a bit too much for me. It throws A LOT of ridiculous and weird stuff at you but I feel like most of it is there just to be weird, it doesn't have purpose, it just bloats the runtime and confuses the viewer for no apparent reason. It's an endless loop of crazyness and it gets repetitive and frustrating after three hours (felt like five hours). I couldn't wait for it to be over and I came out of the theater exhausted. The final part is also the least interesting. An extremely long movie for such a small statement and it didn't make me feel much at the end. It probably needs a few rewatches for me to get everything but i'm not sure this deserves another three hours of my life.

Beau-tiful cinematography and visuals, pitch black humor, great attention to detail in every frame, some deeply uncomfortable and disturbing moments, loved every set piece and Joaquin Phoenix is the best thing about this. His performance is what makes the weird and ridiculous pass in a lot of the scenes and keeps the viewer interested. Patti LuPone stole the spotlight when she shows up she was amazing.

A hard one to give a rating to, i'm not sure I can do it. I'll think about it but right now, i'm afraid!