‘Beau is Afraid’ Review: Mommy Issues

metroweekly.com:

Beau is Afraid (★★☆☆☆), Ari Aster’s ambitious third feature film, in which I weighed how unprofessional it would be to walk out of a three-hour screening early, convinced as I was by that juncture that I was not enjoying myself and would likely not enjoy myself for the duration of the movie.It was about 20 minutes in.If you like vivid nightmares driven by existential depression and crushing grief — which, is to say, if you’re looking for a movie that acts as a mirror for the encroaching suffocation of American life in 2023 — you will love Beau is Afraid.Unlike most horror films that seek to provoke a feeling of escapism from the drudgery of daily life, Aster has drilled deep into the fragile psyche of a nation reeling from two decades of outsized culture war trauma and buttered up those sensitive neuroses with cayenne pepper.That may sound appealing to some viewers.

I personally don’t understand watching a movie to be further reminded why everything is on fire with possibly no hope of recovery or redemption.

Is this the artistic rendering of ironic detachment? Is this a love letter to nihilism? Maybe! And perhaps that is a welcome venture to folks whose idea of a good time is sinking their teeth into a flick that could reasonably be described as weapons-grade cynicism.It is not mine.

I would describe the experience as undergoing a root canal without the benefit of nitrous oxide, which is ironic given that the film is a long, self-indulgent hallucination from a writer-director who appears to have given up on humanity.