Brilliant but bizarre, unsettling surreal, mature drama.
Parents Need to Know
Why Age 17+?
Any Positive Content?
Violence & Scariness
a lot
Rotting corpse in street. Dead bodies. Headless body. Characters killed. Gory wounds. Piece of broken glass embedded in head; blood pours out when removed. Sequence of guns and shooting. Character stabbed several times. One character gouges another's eyes out. Person threatened with gun. Character violently hit by motor vehicle. Character violently attacked. Man's testicles on fire. Murderer on loose who stabs people. Gunshot noises and screaming. Deadly spider bites. Person hits head on hard objects. Character crashes through glass window. A man chokes a woman. Woman falls into glass cabinet. Man on rampage, with hypodermic needles sticking out of his back. Teen girl dies by suicide from drinking paint. Vulgar graffiti (man peeing and drinking own urine, man ejaculating). Character held captive. Giant penis-shaped monster. Person repeatedly stabs monster, gets killed by monster's claws. Outboard motor explodes. Drowning.
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Full-frontal male and female nudity in various scenes. Fairly graphic sex scene, with one character on top of another; one character climaxes, and the other keeps going, moaning, until she climaxes, too. Implied oral sex (one partner shown with head between another's legs). Teens kiss. Teen girl seen in bra. Strong sex-related dialogue. Adult sex shop seen.
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Characters, including a teen, take prescription drugs. Pills are given to solve every problem. Teen smokes weed. Main character smokes weed. A character confesses to "drowning her sorrows" and adds that her "breath is pure wine." Cigarette smoking.
Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.
It's hard to nail down exactly what this movie is about, but it winds up on a pessimistic note. You could interpret it as saying that if fear is instilled in you when you're young, you may never be able to find redemption. But, of course, viewers can choose to live life the opposite of the way Beau does, not letting baseless fears get the better of them.
Positive Role Models
very little
Roger and Grace are initially good samaritans, but their motives become increasingly cloudy (their solution for every problem is more pills, etc.). Beau goes on an odyssey to face his fears, which is admirable, but what he finds isn't exactly uplifting. It's as if he spent his entire life being afraid and searching for meaning, but because it all stems from his relationship with his mother -- and therefore was built into his system at a young age -- it's too late for him to find redemption.
Diverse Representations
very little
Aside from Black actor Stephen McKinley Henderson, who plays Beau's therapist, and an actor who appears in the theater sequence (Patrick Kwok-Choon, of Chinese descent), most of the main cast is White. And the primary focus is on a White man, although the cast is pretty well split between women and men. But while the women seem strong and have agency, they're all secondary characters supporting the male lead.
Parents need to know that Beau Is Afraid is an epic, experimental, surreal odyssey about a man (Joaquin Phoenix) facing his fears. Set in a violent hellscape, the movie includes death, dead bodies, stabbing, guns and shooting, threats, gory wounds, blood, eye-gouging, attacks, characters being hit with blunt objects, suicide by paint-drinking, choking, vulgar graffiti, a penis-shaped monster, and more. There's also a graphic sex scene, male and female full-frontal nudity, kissing, and other sex-related images and dialogue. Strong language includes "f--k," "s--t," "c--k," "c--t," "t-ts," "a--hole," "p---y," "bitch," and more. Characters (including a teen) take prescription pills, sometimes to excess, and characters smoke both pot and cigarettes. Three hours long, the movie is brilliantly made and has some very dark humor, but it can be highly unsettling and will certainly leave many viewers not knowing quite what to think. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails.
Katherine R.Parent of 12, 14, 18+, 18+, 18+ and 5-year-old
July 8, 2024
age 16+
What's the Story?
In BEAU IS AFRAID, Beau (Joaquin Phoenix) lives in an urban hellscape and sees a therapist (Stephen McKinley Henderson) for his crippling anxiety. He's given a new prescription for pills that MUST be taken with water. On the way to visit his mother, his keys and luggage are stolen. Then, when he takes a pill and the water isn't working, he must temporarily leave to rush across the street for a bottle of water, and his apartment is invaded. Then he learns that his mother has died, and he must get to her funeral. Unfortunately, Beau is hit by a truck and winds up in the care of kindly surgeon Roger (Nathan Lane) and his wife, Grace (Amy Ryan). Escaping a deranged neighbor, Beau embarks on an odyssey that turns more and more surreal as viewers learn about his fearful secrets.
Nothing in director Ari Aster's previous movies can prepare viewers for what awaits them in this strange, unsettling, surreal, experimental epic with a deep-dive performance by Joaquin Phoenix. Beau Is Afraid begins with a baby being born, from the baby's point of view. Then we meet adult Beau, a wreck of a man who's the perpetual victim of bad luck and bad tempers. His city is filled with angry, shouting, violent people, his apartment building is covered in graffiti, and his elevator shoots electric sparks from below. (Plus, there's a deadly spider loose.) And this is the most normal part of the movie, and the funniest (although the humor is pitch dark). As it goes further and further, the movie explores the roots of Beau's fears, most or all of them stemming from his relationship with his mother. But there's no simple armchair psychology here. Aster does the work and takes the time to go to dark places. Every frame of Beau Is Afraid is intricately designed to contribute to the whole, and it's a brilliant work. The movie's major drawback is that it's not easy to actually recommend to anybody. For many, it will fall somewhere between baffling and unwatchable. It's definitely a challenge.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the violence in Beau Is Afraid. How did it make you feel? Was it exciting? Shocking? What did the movie show or not show to achieve this effect? Why is that important?
How are drugs depicted? Are prescription pills shown to be helpful? Addictive? Numbing? How so?
How has fear affected Beau's life? What has he missed out on? What are some ways to find courage and avoid a life like Beau's?
What does "surreal" mean? How is it different from watching a "realistic" movie?
What's your take on the movie's ending? What do you think Beau's journey ultimately means?
MPAA explanation:
strong violent content, sexual content, graphic nudity, drug use and language
Last updated:
June 3, 2024
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By Jeffrey M. Anderson
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