Beau Is Afraid

Beau Is Afraid follows Beau Wassermann, an anxious man living in a noisy, threatening neighborhood who rarely leaves his apartment. When a family matter forces him to travel to his controlling mother's home, the trip turns into a surreal, drawn-out journey in which he faces his fears, his past and a series of increasingly strange encounters. Joaquin Phoenix plays Beau, with Patti LuPone as his mother Mona, Amy Ryan and Nathan Lane among the supporting cast.

The film is written and directed by Ari Aster, his fourth feature after Hereditary and Midsommar, and it sits between those two films and Eddington in his filmography. It was produced by Lars Knudsen and Aster for A24 and other partners, with a budget of 35 million dollars and a worldwide gross of about 12 million. At 179 minutes, it is a long, episodic adventure-comedy-fantasy.

Audience response has been moderate: on IMDb it holds 6.6 out of 10 from roughly 78,000 votes, and on TMDB 6.7 out of 10 from about 1,400 votes. A critics' rating of 6.8 out of 10 from 273 reviews places critical opinion slightly above the audience scores, though both are middling. The large credited cast and crew reflect the scale of the production.