Beau is Afraid Explained (Spoilers) 

A lot of people are missing out the main symbolism in the whole movie: The WATER It is everywhere all the time in almost all the scenes Psychologically water represents the feminine aspect and also the unconscious. The first scene is Beau being born and you can hear and see the water he is coming from. He dies swallowed by water. He is afraid of the bathtub when kid. He needs water urgently to swallow the pills. There is a flood in his dream. There is a constant aspect of there being TOO MUCH WATER and sometimes NO WATER, which for me indicates the overwhelming and smothering aspect of being swallowed by a narcissistic mother which love bombs you(too much water) and then denies you (no water) which is a trauma by itself for an infant. The devouring mother is represented constantly in this movie as the water. Watch it again and notice that

I thought the movie insinuated that Beau's psychosis was a result of his Mother using him as a guinea pig for all of the drugs that made her rich. The whole film I was confused to how she was so successful and he was living in the gutter. Then you see the scene of him walking through the house and seeing himself in all of the framed medicine ads for all of her drugs. And you realize his mother is a monster who used him, drove him crazy (drugs and mentally abusive), and you see why Beau is afraid

Love the ending. There are people who need and ask for help like Beau, but instead we judge them, then just watch them, again like Beau, drowning and died.

I'm always intrigued by how Ari Aster utilizes mental health in his storytelling. Yes, the movies could be seen as just horror, but at their core, there is a very stark exploration of trauma and how it manifests. Thank you for your insight!

I feel like I need to see this movie a few dozen more times before I've even started to understand it. I love how it relates to Ari Aster's other movies. Hereditary and Midsommar highlights the devastating effects of losing family, and Beau is Afraid shows the devastating effects of holding onto family no matter how much they hurt us. I think Aster's work is at its most horrifying when it shows that the people who are supposed to love us are also the most capable of destroying us.

I think Amy Ryan’s character could possibly play a role symbolizing someone in Beau’s life who can see what’s going on with him and try to give him understanding. But yet Beau is so deeply confused and controlled by his mother that he can’t recognize it. The scene where she passes him the note and the scene where she sits next to him on the couch and tells him “I can never understand what you’re going through but-“ and she gets him to switch to channel 73 shows this. I also think people like Beau, who have others in his life try to help him, tend to be too difficult to deal with and end up hurting others by accident which leads them to turn their backs on him. Very much like the paint scene where Amy Ryan ends up sending the Veteran to hunt him down.

To me the movie is largely about emotional incest. The mom shared a bed with Beau when asking him about the little girl he likes. It has a sexual romantic tone to it that is abnormal

Another big theme I took from the film was gender dynamics. Beau is shown to be subconsciously impacted by the absence of a "masculine" role model in his life, through his obsession with his missing father. The picture of his father he keeps shows him as a "builder", which is what Beau imagines he could strive to become if he could escape the chains of his mother. Mona seeks to punish/discourage all of Beau's "masculine" urges (not to be essentialist myself, just going with the themes of the film). It is clear that Mona has deep insecurities about men/masculinity, implied by the penis monster in the attic. It may be that her own mother instilled this in her, or perhaps Beau's father mistreated her in some way as well. It's not entirely confirmed in the film. With that said, I think it is very intriguing that Amy Ryan forced Beau to take Toni's room. Beau is this "emasculated" male character, who when "adopted" by this new family, takes the place of their neglected daughter. To me, that part alone speaks volumes about each of the characters' psychology. Beau is being crammed into this feminized box against his will, due to not conforming to the masculine role model (the dead son). Toni is so devalued by her parents for not being a boy (perhaps even hinted that they thought she would be by her name), that a literal man replaces her as the family's surrogate "daughter." Beau and Toni sort of mirror each other, in a cruelly ironic way. Ultimately, I think the film is very critical of both gender paradigms. Beau is a fundamentally incomplete character, with one part of himself (the part that stood up for himself & defied his mother) trapped and malnourished in Mona's attic. I don't think we're ultimately meant to see what remains of Beau as "feminine" but perhaps the film questions why we label these behaviors as masculine or feminine. The implication being that there is a "wholeness" of character that is deprived from each of us by the rigid gender roles we inhabit.

To me, the first hour felt like the EMBODIMENT of what ptsd felt like to me. Violent flashes of images. Paranoid, irrational fear of the people around you. Nonlinear understanding of the events around you . Everything feels fuzzy and jumbled together. General sense of confusion and dissociation. Disconnection from body aka the body and self feel very separate from the events occurring around you. The lines of mental fear blurred with physical reality. Then, in the family’s house, that character, whatever his name was, was literally a war veteran and had a scene where he ran after beau shooting a gun. I was like omg.. yeah many war veterans have ptsd. My assessment of this resonating with my experience of ptsd must be correct.

My interpretation is that beau who *spolier* Was dropped on his head as a baby as they say in the opening scene then goes on to have some sort of developmental disorder. The symptoms would assume some low level autism and/or schizophrenia (the paranoia, the psycho sexual artwork sene in the beginning of the film). On top of this his mother is extremely emotionally abusive (possibly even sexually). Everything that happens before the call from his mother is his interpretation of the world and the dangers in it due to his condition. Everything afterwards is in his head because he took pills and died in the bath tub. The final scene is commentary on society watching as people who are suffering from mental health issues are literally drowning in their own minds as we and our governments and the world are silent and do nothing.

Beau is Scared is 3 hours and exhausting to the viewer. I think the Director successfully simulated a hallucinatory nightmare with a constantly evolving construct. I definitely had a sense of being trapped in theater similarly to being trapped in a long grueling nightmare. In a deep long nightmare the dreamer is not self aware and helplessly being swept along in the narrative. After a runaway nightmare we wake up tense and exhausted. It is hard to tell when the nightmare narrative plot starts. It could be the entire movie, it could be where Beau fills up the bathtub, it could be when he was hit by the car. After reflecting a bit, I decided the chaotic street scenes in Beau's neighborhood could be exaggerated hyper-reality as perceived by Beau's anxious, hyper sensitive (or schizophrenic) mind. In other words even Beau's conscious perceptions are a form of unreliable narrative as shown to the viewer.

This guy gets it. There are freudian and kafkaesque themes in this movie. And the ending was brilliant. Almost an allegory of the cave theme. The way he enters the cave and the images are shown to the people as a representation of beau. And beau can’t see the screen from the angle. Shows he entered the cave and died rather than escaping it.

Haven’t seen any other videos explaining the movie. Saw it yesterday and was interested to see what everyone else was thinking. Glad that you posted this as soon as possible!

This whole movie is just so good. Ari and Joaquin made magic.

One of my takes: The image of him on the spiral stair case is when he was on the phone with the UPS man receiving the news about his mothers death. His mother was capturing the moment that he was supposed to be utterly destroyed by her supposed loss of life because it made her feel control, which is how she has been managing her reception of love due to generational trauma established by her own mother.

Mona is not just the domineering force in Beau’s life but seemingly everyone around him (including us). During the opening credits, among the production company logos (A24, etc.), the MW (Mona Wasserman) logo is among them, letting us know that she produced what we are about to see. This is reinforced near the end, when the photo mosaic of Mona’s face is made up of her employees (Nathan Lane among them, and once it comes to Blu Ray, I’m sure when paused, we’ll see many others who have joined Beau on his journey; he just stood out with his glasses and mustache). This photo mosaic is very similar to a promotional poster for The Truman Show. Rather than being a picture of Ed Harris, the puppet master of that movie, the photos make up the image of Jim Carrey, who was the victim of a lifelong social experiment wherein he is being surveilled 24/7. Mona, in that regard, sees herself as a victim of Beau being such a horrible child, a projection of her own abuse toward Beau. She has made every attempt (successfully) to make sure that Beau is, indeed, afraid. He soon watches the evening news, in which the stories are so ridiculous that they’re barely an exaggeration of real news (Birthday Boy Stab Man, described as a circumcised white male, will stab you in the neck and guts). Onto the mental health theme: I believe Beau was conditioned to be have a litany of mental health problems by Mona, or that, at the very least, stemmed from her abuse. When Elaine and Beau are in the buffet line as kids, and he’s talking about this food being bad for that reason and that food causing cancer, it seems a direct result of Mona’s conditioning that ejaculation will kill him (seemingly among other things). Beau lives in an apartment building owned by Mona, eats food with the MW logo on it, and takes meds that have the same logo, provided by a doctor who whose only job seems to be breaking his Hippocratic oath by giving every recording of their sessions to Mona. Beau is literally surrounded by his mother, even when she’s not around, even when she “dies.” I think it would be easy to say that Beau is a psychotic hypochondriac who suffers from anxiety and depression, but I think this film, more fascinatingly, shows us that these mental conditions are the result of conditioning, not necessarily a chemical imbalance or something physical like a TBI. Mona is clearly a narcissist who is heading up a lifelong Munchausen experiment. She is also the personification for what is flawed in the way we consume media. Her disappointments concerning Beau at the trial sequence are silly and genuinely out of context, at least from what we’ve seen, showing that we can’t always believe what we see in videos because the media will not contextualize their meaning and at even edit the videos so that we can’t contextualize their meaning. For instance, we see that Beau, after what appears to be a hide and seek prank, did not come out of hiding, even when his mother was injured. A man in the crowd during the trial (sounded to be his defense attorney, whose voice was not magnified like the prosecutor’s) comes to Beau’s defense and says that he was just young and scared, and that’s why he didn’t come out, not because he’s evil. For this logical reasoning, the defense attorney is thrown from the balcony onto the rocks below a la Midsommar. Compare this to real life out-of-context videos. Remember those Covington Catholic School kids? It would appear this little shit in a MAGA hat was disrespectfully inching toward a Native American with a cocky, condescending smirk on his faces as the man performed a drumming ritual native to his people. This was the media’s trickery. MAGA had years of being given a bad name, whether one supports Trump or not, so anything this kid did was already thought to be guilty, and it was viewed that way by pundits, late night hosts, etc. until the context came out that the Native American man had not only instigated the standoff but was the one inching toward the boy and the not the other way around. The media had the full video at the onset but only played the clip that made the kid look bad. Even though the kid sued various networks for their dishonest coverage, his defense had already been thrown over the balcony. The out of context story was already much more amplified than the the real one. People had made up their minds, some of them people who could’ve helped this kid out, but chose to go with the narrative that confirmed what they already felt about people in MAGA hats, and many of them paid a price for it. But no one remembers any apologies or news stories dedicated directly to this boy’s unfair trial in a court of public opinion. They remember that horrible image of the smirking boy in the Trump hat, much like the audience at the end of this film remember that horrible image of Mona hurting her ankle as she fell in distress. That horrible Image of Beau peeking out from behind the pillar because he was horrified of the trouble he now faced. Same thing with Beau’s gift of the For the Boys soundtrack and how he’d gotten it for her two years in a row. Slight side note that will make sense: my own mother had this soundtrack and she loved it. She went through a range of emotions while singing along with Bette Midler. Some songs were upbeat and fun, others were somber, and she sang along accordingly. But my mother more or less hated the film because of one scene: Bette Midler’s character watches her own son get killed in Vietnam and holds his bloody corpse in her lap while she screams and cries. Perhaps Mona and Beau watched this film together. Perhaps Mona loved the music and Beau actually watched her go through a range of emotions while hearing the music. Snapping and clapping to the fun ones, crying at the sad ones, etc. He thought the album was meaningful, like watching the movie with her all over again. But, perhaps the same with my mother, she was in love with the soundtrack but absolutely horrified of the film for the same reason. Maybe Mona stopped listening to the soundtrack just to wipe the image from her memory of a mother violently losing her son. Perhaps young Beau thought she’d lost the album or maybe he just wanted to remind her to start feeling something, anything again. We don’t know because the only context we get is Mona opening the same gift twice and feigning joy the second time she gets it. I don’t know the reason Ari Aster chose the For the Boys soundtrack as Beau’s seemingly thoughtless gift, but I do know a lot of people, women in particular my mother’s age and older, who wouldn’t watch it again or would never watch it a first time when they heard about that scene. The prosecutor goes on to say that Beau made horrible excuses not to visit Mona. I think having your apartment invaded and destroyed due to a lack of a means to lock it (the missing keys) and not having any luggage to take with you is a good enough reason to stay home until things can be settled. Beau doesn’t appear to have much, so having his clothes, toothpaste, toothbrush, etc. stolen is a big deal. That brings me to my interpretation of the pink/blue. Beau’s almost complete lack of anything masculine due to no father or father figure in his life seemed intentionally set up by Mona. Likely she knew what a lack of a strong male presence would do. Beau’s apartment shows no evidence of hobbies or interests. No deer head on the wall below the rifle that killed it. No tool chest with a near-finished project nearby, no model airplanes or cars. Just a couch, bed, TV, and microwave. Very bland and empty, save for the blurry image of Beau’s “father,” in which Moan’s face is superimposed, also blurry but definitely there when I watched it a second time. No one with a male perspective to talk girls with. No one to inspire a love of sports. Due to this overwhelming female presence his entire life, Beau may question his sexuality. In the play sequence, for reasons that seem unknown, sometimes Beau’s wife “will look like a man,” much like the portrait of Mona’s mother hanging in her house. The lines are blurred for Beau, masculine or feminine, fat or straight, etc., perhaps why Toni wrote his name in pink on the wall of someone who typified masculinity, a handsome, chiseled soldier, a war hero who has a sword hanging on his wall. Beau cannot distinguish between who he is attracted to, if anyone other than Elaine, until he meets the pregnant orphan of the forest. She is a mother to be and treats Beau very much like a caring mother. This is why he projects her outfit, her look, into his version of the play. She bears his children because he knows she can. He raises the children with her because she is more caring and nourishing, much better maternal instincts than Mona. Ari Aster has done it again, possibly the best he’s ever done in terms of getting people talking and interpreting his work. I’ll see it a third time at some point, and I’m sure there’ll be even more to discuss. Until then, thank you for this review/analysis.

Congrats on your first vid! Excited to see this channel grow. Amazing video btw

Loved this video so much I peeped your channel and saw this was the only video. If this was your first video…damn, did you hit the ground running. Please please please make more videos where you provide a psychoanalytic critique of a film. Very few channels successfully do this and most of them only give a general, shallow take. This was great!

This video is wonderful and made me think about this movie it a completely different way. I thought the scenes in this movie were all visualizations of his fears and anxiety. Not hallucinations, just visualizations for the audience to understand whats going on in his mind. This might be me projecting because I have an anxiety disorder and often think of surreal situations happening that frighten me. But those thoughts are often rooted in a past memory that did happen or trauma. Similar to when Beau’s friends as a kid raided his mothers room which he felt guilt for and the scene when the people from the street raided his home. 👀

Best breakdown so far. I have ptsd and get psychosis and extreme paranoia sporadically since the trauma happened. It’s great to see a psychiatrist’s view on the movie, I felt most people wouldn’t understand how well they paint these mental struggles. The feeling of being watched at all times and judgment abs fear. I felt so lucky to see this movie opening week with only one other person in the audience with me. I felt so seen I cried so much honestly.

Theres so much to take from this movie truly one of a kind great video subscribed cant wait to see what you got next

Subscribed immediately for already having a breakdown, and your unique perspective

Great video, watched this yesterday. Never felt so anxiety riddled even one whole hour after having watched the movie. Definitely an experience

I think the last scene was a nod to Freud's personality theory, where Beau is this tiny little helpless ego that can't save himself. And it's like his mom is his inner critic. Her voice is instilled as the critic in his head that he can't escape, and his wise mind is completely overpowered. In the end, he just succumbs to her and his unconscious (the water).

Fascinating breakdown, thanks for this man. Seeing it tomorrow I’m hyped

this was super inciteful and helped me think about a lot of things regarding the movie i hadn't noticed before, please keep it up!

This really cleared up a lot of confusion i had after seeing this movie, thank you!

An even earlier instance of being watched is a camera pointed at Beau on the therapists office desk. My general interpretation is that most if not all of what we saw was solely Beaus experience. Nothing is truely objectively real and details like the camera, the savages on the streets, or his mothers logo popping up litteraly everywhere (it's even among the production companies in the opening) are manifestations of his paranoia and anxiety, same goes for all the information we receive and the information that blows right over Beaus head (missing fragments and weird pauses in conversations). Beau reacted badly to the new meds and his mothers death pushed him over the edge. Somewhere soon after he went completely lost in his delusions and that is what we experience with him.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and professional information!! Make me even enjoy the movie more. Good work!

I really liked your analysis. I had a few theories I wanted to hear your thoughts on. I interpreted that whole"play" between Beau and his journey as Ari sort of saying you should break out from under whatever is controlling you, whether it be your mom or religion or whatever circumstances, and to live your life. Ari tells this play of a beautiful and eventful life that beau can experience, and it ends with his "sons" saying, but if you never had sex how did you have us. And I interpreted that as Ari saying, if you never try to live your life or try to do things or be happy, then you'll never experience happiness or those results. He's saying if you don't try, it'll never happen. Which I found to be beautiful and touching as I watched. Another thing I kind of put together with your help is the fact that Moana is so controlling over beau. And that can possibly be due to the fact of her lack of control over Beau's father and the fact that she couldn't;t make him love her or be under her control. Therefore she dedicates her life to taking control of everything with her business, and going on to control beau's life with her manipulation of him. She tells him this wild fantasy of beau's dad dying from sex, to make Beau afraid of having sex, this further helps Moana keep beau to herself and restrain him from making any sexual or loving relationships with another woman. Maling Moana the only woman in Beau's life. Obviously Beau's "twin" and father in the form of a penis is just a metaphor for Moana "hiding" or restringing Beau's "touch" and brace side as well as Beau's father who Moana thinks is a "dick", which is why he's in the form of a penis. I'd like to hear your thoughts on these theories as well as what you thought about the film as a whole. Is beau's mother actually this rich successful woman who hired all these people? Or is that also apart of Beau's apparent medication overdose, and this is all just a figment of his imagination. Overall I loved this movie and Ari is one of my favorites.

This is a great channel helpful and informational, wish you a lot of growth!

I really enjoyed your analysis, even though I did not agree with everything. I think one of the main goal of this movie was to explore the subjectivity of mental health. By making every scene so ambiguous in what is real and what isn’t, it brings the audience to question their reality and the reality of the movie. It also sparks discussion a posteriori, which is always a sign of success

Very nice analysis man, keep em coming!! Another movie from this year you could potentially look at is Infinity Pool.

Mona, Beau’s Mother, is a CEO of a Mega-Corporation; she controls every aspect of Beau’s life in a “staged reality show” like fashion. Her company’s logo is on everything in Beau’s apartment; including on Beau himself. Mona being a narcissist and/or a person with antisocial personality disorder; treat all relationships like objects and tools to be used, which includes her own children. Abuse from people with these types of personality disorders happens in a cycle; in which over time, it causes their victim’s personal identity to be eroded, their emotions disconnected, and it leaves them doubting their own reality. The victim’s personal boundaries and free will in these toxic relationships are considered “incriminating.” Beau spends the whole film “incriminating” himself; until he’s finally pleading with Mona to take him back. Starting that cycle of malignant narcissistic abuse over again. Completely cutting contact with these toxic people is the only way out of this complex abuse. Which is what Beau’s older brother and “big dick” father did to Mona; in return, she holds that guilt and shame over Beau. Essentially strengthening that trauma bond over each other. Beau is ultimately trapped in this cycle of abuse until he can learn to escape it.

Please make more videos, this was a pleasure to listen to.

. I would love to hear someone give thoughts on the corporatization aspects of the film, I think those play into the theory of Beau not being able to care for himself. It’s his mothers initials on the microwaveable food he eats, pictures of people who had surveilled him that make up his mothers face in the home, his mother owned the building in which he lived. All speaking on that idea of his perceived inability to care for himself. Great video man, most of all I agree with the premise of Ari’s intentionality. There is far too much care within the project, and respect for the viewers intelligence. Also, I think that the attic scene is some sort of allegory about humans and the way we perceive threats. The audience will leave and likely still be talking about the “monster” and yet it does no harm to beau and is of far less significance then many of the other obstacles he would have faced

I really appreciated your take on this movie, specially the references to conservatorship and psychiatric hospitals. (The whole "negotiation" as to when he can leave, insurance companies, the whole act when he's in her - and his? - house etc). Great points

Please continue uploading to this channel!!!!

Ya know the one part of the movie where I was struggling to fit it into the overall narrative was part 2 in the house and your interpretation actually makes a lot of sense to me. Now it fits much more cleanly for me with the other acts. Thanks for the video!

Bro ur explained details make me feel that this movie will b a classic, ive noticed that alot of people like it, I have to c this again. Great vid

I’d argue that this movie addresses the single most important and misunderstood issue for our generation which is mental health. As a society in the US we no longer take care of those who suffer from undiagnosed mental health conditions, and this movie puts us in the shoes of someone suffering from schizophrenia

No lie about a week after watching this film I wished a therapist or something of the sort would dissect this film. Bravo!

One detail I love is the lil boys toy boat flipping over earlier in the film when his mother scolds him.

Great video, cheers!!

For me the biggest mindf*ck was the ending. What am I supposed to make of Beau being judged and then, in a way, sentenced to death? It didnt seem like he deserved it. Idk why it just bothers me that i dont really understand the last scene or why he had to die. Can anyone explain? Edit: oh I also need an explanation for Beau having a double being locked in the attic with his father who happens to be a... Penis monster? What is this supposed to mean?

I found the beginning to be very much like my mental imagery around social anxiety/agoraphobia with it being such a big deal to just walk to my car and the intrusive fear thoughts of being perceived, approached, interrupted, taken advantage of, etc. I waited until i was in a better mood to see this movie because that's something i'm struggling with as well as a stalker. Lots of it was relatable for me including some psychotic episodes I once had from medications

THIS MOVIE CAN ONLY BE UNDERSTOOD BY THOSE WITH A NARCISSISTIC MOTHER. IT SHOWS EXACTLY HOW UNSAFE YOUR LIFE FEELS UNTIL YOU FIGURE IT OUT AND LET GO. Everything that destroys his feeling of safety is how you feel and what you fear happening all the time without any explanation because you are convinced you are loved and shamed when you question it. When you realize that it is exactly like the Truman Show where everything was a lie

Thanks for this!

The movie reminds me of an articulated fever dream. It's very expressionistic and is very elemental in its symbology.

Fantastic synopsis and analyzation. 👌

The grieving family and particularly the paint scene broke me Edit: the sprial staircase looked like DNA to me

His mother is a stand-in for society as a whole, and a representation how young men are medicated, shamed, and constantly made to feel guilty.

I like this style of analysis, one of the things that came to mind whilst watching, is that of the attic space representing the headspace of Beau, with the Id Ego and Super Ego being represented by creature/doppleganger inside - which again, is attacked by outside forces.

That Bill Hader cameo also points to that statement about being a comedy and I thought Beau could also have Agoraphobia ontop of everything else he could possibly have.

At the end my bf suggested that he died and was being judged in the afterlife in the stadium. But it's probably more symbolic

I just started your video, so I'm not sure if you'll touch on this too, but this movie felt like an example of what it's like to grow up with a parent with untreated bpd

Watch Beau actually knowing what’s coming next and it’s a far different experience.

Beau and his psych’s exchange about his new meds, I thought, like a lot of the movie, was probably very much from his own inner perspective, so I’m not sure we can take it at face value that the medication wasn’t explained, or that his provider betrayed him. Those are both sort of ecstatic truths for Beau, but probably not actually linear events. For Beau, the only thing that stands out to him is “always with water,” and he doesn’t register or care about anything else that might have been said, in my opinion.

there's a lot to take in on the shot of beau in toni's bed. on the surface, it's just a typical teenage girl's room but given the symbolism regarding relationships in act two, you can delve a little deeper. Posters: "Only1", i see this as having two meanings here: we have the name of the band itself, Toni desires to be the only one her parents care about. if you notice, there are two posters of this band. I believe the duo of the same band's posters symbolize both toni and her brother, the wer supposed to be the only children in their parents lives. her brother is dead and beau is an infantalized old man who she sees as encroaching upon their peaceful lives. we have a block of a word cut off to spell the word "ear", survailence themes. here's something i noticed while writing this, you look to the left side of the shot, and you see an empty corner with a lone bookbag and the posters above it, nothing to speak of for morning routines on the dresser. however the right side is a chaotic mess of beauty products and vanity items. her favorite band members form a spiral right next to her mirror implying this is a cyclical habit of hers. the professor marvelous final exam poster drawing foreshadowing to her comment about "beau failing his little test" which i still don't quite understand the meaning behind.

Keep making new videos pls, if this is your first video on yt, you are fucking amazing man. Keep making more

That was a brilliant breakdown. I loved this movie I'm glad I'm allowed to laugh at these horrible situations in this film

To me, this is a coming-of-age story. Up until the day of his travel, he has lived as a boy, afraid of everything, but suddenly he had to confront so many things... The guy he thought was going to kill him, the fear of leaving his home unattended, the fear of leaving by himself when the new family took him in, the fear of having a life that meant nothing which he had to suffer in his hallucination in the theater, the fear of dying, the fear of having sex. He fouth all of his “demons” The last thing was to “kill” his mom and free himself from everything that kept him captive and finally he had to die.

Beau was dropped on his head when he was born. If I recall correctly the doctor has to lift him by his legs to get the water out of his lungs. Plus you can hear his moms manic paranoia right away asking if he’s okay or something the very SECOND he’s out of the womb.

Your interpretation of Beau watching himself and fastforwarding is funny because I missed that scene in the bathroom. Thankfully my wife was able to fill me in.

The paint scene was lost on me yet it was such a simple message.

PLOT TWIST: Beau died in the bathtub. It was suic*dal. Speaking about the ending, the boat where Beau is, it symbolizes the bathtub. Wonder why he got glued to the boat? It means that he can't escape from the bathtub since he was in his last breath at that time. And when the boat capsizes, that's when he dies. Beau died early in the film and those following scenes after the bathtub are merely what Beau thinks as he was dying - from thinking that there is someone at the ceiling, to thinking that there are some people who would help him just like what Roger and Grace did (but everything then went haywire so he fled into the woods), to thinking about having a family (but later separated by a flood), to meeting Ellaine in his mother's house (but Ellaine later died when he was the one who supposed to die), to overthinking that his mother is alive and just faking everything, to seeing his braver self and his father in the attic wherein he believes to what his mom said - saying that his dad is a massive jerk, and so his dying brain visualizes a big penis monster. Those are merely the adventure of Beau's dying mind just like what's stated in the trailer - 'comes a big adventure'. When Beau goes onto the boat and found himself in a stadium, that's when he is in his last breath in the bathtub. He saw his mother still alive tho she already died after Beau choke him - just means that no matter what Beau does, his mother will always be there- checking on his life, abusing him nonstop and not treating him as a son. Wonder why the sequences after he lies down in the bathtub have gotten exaggerated, hypothetical or quite off? Well, that's how a dying brain is supposed to work. Beau thinks of Just so you know, Beau was the guinea pig of his mother's pharmaceutical experiments. Those pills he takes or those pills the therapist prescribes are experimental, and he has been taking different kinds of those pills for years. Apparently, it affects his mental health more - causing mental disorders like anxiety and paranoia, hence the title Beau Is Afraid. The place where he lives is a rehab facility, that's why you can see insane people out there. And it is owned by her mother, so, his mother literally considers Beau mentally ill,. Beau became anxiety-driven merely because of his mother. No doubt, his mother is the mere villain of the movie.

Beau is Afraid was released on Patti LuPones(Mona/Mom) birthday. i think that was definitely deliberate .

beau's character brought the joker to mind a few times for me, Aster definitely makes every single choice with an intention.

i really interpreted the movie as a commentary on specifically anxiety, and how in some cases with anxiety, your mind will jump to the absolute worst case scenario. throughout the movie beau goes through a pattern, finding himself in a seemingly amazing situation, (ex. toni driving him home when he wants to go home), and having that situation going the absolute worst possible way it could go (toni and her friend making him smoke an unknown substance and attempt to blackmail him). just a really awesome movie overall.

great viewpoint on the paint scene.

From my experience I never had a medical doctor go over side effects of drugs or treatments without me asking.

Not sure if this has already been mentioned. I tried to read all the comments but ran out of steam lol, or maybe I missed it in this video, but did anyone else notice that when Beau was lying in that pink bedroom there was a big chandelier dangling above him? That's gotta mean something

What is the song in the movie "Beau is afraid" that plays during the forest scene , when they're about to play the piece of theatre. It sounded like it's from the 80's and funky. Asking for a reddit

I’m of the impression that much of it was symbolic of Beau’s thoughts and fears - the mother was narcissistic and controlling, that is clear but I get the impression that a lot of what we see symbolically represents his thoughts about her control and not necessarily the actual reality. That being said, it’s very different to distinguish what’s really happening to Beau and what is in his mind. The ending is particularly baffling… did she really die? Did she really set him up to test him or was that just an exaggeration of how he was feeling… in the beginning of the film he asked her what he should do on the phone and she told him to decide the right thing to do in a very loaded manipulative way, was her death and the set-up and guilt around that just his inner dialogue about not getting to his mother on time? It’s a very difficult film to unpack from a conventional plot perspective.

I find it fascinating that so many people found this movie funny. They describe it as a dark comedy and I truly can't see the humor in it at all. Even in its most wild moments im like "Yeah, that makes sense. That's exactly what that feels like." I found the movie surreal, but never absurd. I totally related to Beau which is probably not a good thing lol

Hey man, since you mentioned Jung, I have to put to you. Most of the psychologists I know don't hold him with any regard. And he's either taken as shyster or prophet in that weird spiritual trend (new age, psychedelics, etc.). My particular opinion is that people get him up to his early work on personality, later when he gets conceptual nobody really gets it because its too introverted. So, what's your take? Thanks for your wonderful work!

As someone whose basically a walking dsm (ptsd, cptsd, bpd with audio hallucinations and slight psychosis, medicine resistant depression, GAD, Panic disorder) it’s been difficult seeing all these movies recently basically « personifying » mental illnesses. I get it helps create convo about mental illness. But my life is not a horror movie. My life is hell, but it’s not horror. It’s not something I would ever want to go pay money and experience. It’s pure trauma, emptiness, and anxiety so bad I vomit all day and have to check my heart rate and benzos therefore forgetting parts of my life. Prob just me but this, Smile, resurrection, men, and Skinnamarink (which sent me to the psych hospital because it triggered my ptsd so bad I hyperventilated and passed out) frustrate me as a horror lover.

Wow.. very interesting. I would like to hear what Ari Aster thinks if he sees this video.

Just finished watching this film and your video. Still processing, but wanted to comment on your take about how the psychiatrist handled the new therapy and didn't provide him with the proper information. I am thinking that this is connected to how that man was working for Beau's mom, and not really concerned with Beau's best interests.

Would really like to see you do a movie called the chum scrubber. It’s not the best movie ever made, it does have Glenn Close main character of Schindler‘s list. And just a plethora of A-list actors, if I remember right, it’s directed or made by Steven Spielberg‘s long time coproducer it’s like the only film she’s ever made. But that form is deeply psychological. it’s about a guy finds his best friend dad and doesn’t tell anyone, his dad is a psychiatrist, he’s addicted to pills, and a whole town and all the, teenagers are on some type of Acacian, it was very of its time, and maybe even more prevalent today. As I said before, it’s not anything, that’s going to be up for an Oscar… But as far as psychology, I think there’s a Lotta talk about. If anything you can’t rip it apart, it may be totally factually in accurate

I get serious anxiety when I see people having sex or naked on film. Is this movie riddled with it? Or is it just in a scene or 2? Sorry for such a specific question. I’m just very excited for this movie and want to be prepared beforehand

*spoilers ofc* I interpreted it as less of an Oedipal journey and more a story of a man who suffered munchausen by proxy having to return home after escaping. In his mind she controls all She stunted his mind sexually by convincing him to bust would kill him. And even in the bed as a kid made clear her control with how she interrogated him on Elaine.. He escaped the home but never got away from her control.. he was a man who functioned infantile and needed approval for everything. He doesn’t just want her validation or answer, but many other characters, even strangers, because he was so lacking in self confidence due to her grip on his entire psyche.

I really liked your analyses, I agree with you on many things, but did I waited for you to talk about a very important thing in the film which was, the first and last scene, which was Beaus mother screaming and crying for fear about her new born baby who was dropped by the doctor I think its an important point because in my opinion I think that thats where Beau started to be afraid. Also I dont know if it occured to you or not, that Beau is a psychotic Puer Aeternus? I hope you can reply on this.

I think the medication that he was prescribed (which you mention toward the end of the video) was potentially a driving force behind his journey to his mother's house - hence why they may have left its side effects and such intentionally vague. If he was having visual hallucination from psychosis (and other medication he was taking), I could imagine that his journey from city to suburban to forest to home was also in itself a symbolic side effect to him being on this new medication. But, I'm still trying to make sense of all of the wild symbolism, haha.

Great analysis! Please turn on auto subtitles for non-english speakers.

Just as a viewer note, we don’t need a “coming up” segment in a RU-vid video, especially if it’s under an hour. Its not needed and I see a lot of people doing it. We already clicked on the video, we don’t need you to convince us to watch it. I’m just saying though no hate

i have thoughts on beau’s therapist not describing the pros and cons of the new medication given at the beginning of the movie. I believe that this was done purposely because due to how his mother controls everything in his life (including the therapy sessions) in a sense, much of his life was fictitious because it was all controlled by his mom. i dunno i don’t think he was trying to misrepresent the prescription of these medications, just added to his mom’s omnipotent control

Unfortunately this movie was made for psychology students, not for normal humans. Btw a psychology degree is not indicative of one's IQ. Throughout this movie I found myself checking, continuously, how much time was remaining, wishing it could be over.

Poor Beau was BORN doomed to a life that he has no control over and lives permanently in the subsequent fear that accompanies that, hence, is afraid. However, he's such an endless creation/Eiffel Tower of misery metaphors, that as they accumulate, he can start to lose some degree of human substance, a kind of cipher that we start to feel a bit distanced from, even if we can totally relate to some of his issues. OTOH Beau's still very interesting and entertaining as he merrily proceeds through the 8 Rings of Hell. His later in life (and not always linear/sometimes disjointed) journey on his way to accidentally sort a few crucial things out about his existence, as unlikely precipitated by his mother's manufactured personal crisis, was sometimes EXTREMELY engaging, unnerving, thoughtful, and deviously creatively wrought by director Aster. For the visual treats: Shades of Kubrick 2001: King of Oz/Puppet Master Mother's silent, expansive, dangerously overpowering and sinister, austere multi million dollar MCM lair. Bergman: Psychologically intense facial closeups with long silences and minimal dialogue at times. Lynchian/Fellini fever dream/scenes of freakish people and monsters in familial settings. Bunuel/Polanski blood and guts, jump scare visceral gore. Scorsese/Tarantino ultra absurd violence re sociological narratives. Cocteau/Grimm Brothers/Stephen King sinister fairytale fantasy/simple European folklore sequences laced with dread and beautiful, childlike whimsy/niaf artwork.

I find Beau Was Afraid a brilliant movie. depends on how you understand it. For me, it was Us. Us who are living on the shadows if the past, the shadows of our family that wants to protect us ending up controlling us, the society that we're surrounded, and everything that happens to our life that sometimes doesn't always on our favor even if we know what we did was right, in the end you'll be judged by the society based on what they've seen and heard.. and you living with the truth but doesn't have voice to tell what's true nd your feelings and your pain. That's life. That's our life. That is how I understand the movie. I can't recommend it. since I think it was only for those who are willing to understand it.

I'm leaving this comment before watching the video all the way through to give my own interpretation without it being subconsciously affected by your opinion. Personally, I thought the film was going to focus on a victim of narcissistic abuse in Beau and how he can overcome(or fail to overcome, in this case) his abusive parent. After the first phone call Beau had with his mother, it was apparent that his mother was a narcissistic abuser and Beau was entirely dependent on her. This movie hurt in such an amazing way for me. I still haven't fully processed the ending, even though I knew that Beau would meet his downfall from the beginning of the film.

thanks even though i am not good at english but your explained is very impressive (but subtitles would have been more helpful for someone like me. 😅)

Yes, fine, you’re right. FFS stop asking me to validate what you’re saying every three seconds 😡 🤣🤣🤣 Only messing; ask away, good sir. Good vid, man.

When a sentence starts with like, i switch off.

But did it make you LAUGH, is the question I ask everyone I know who watches this.

But why did his father take the form of a penis monster. That was my only question, and was it a twin brother, or was that rather an amalgamation of his mother's perspective of her own family

So who is Beau’s father?

Is Elaine Beau's father's child he had with another woman? because she's the one that died from finishing, not beau, why did Mona lie to him about what his father passed down? And Elaine worked for mona while she was young because she shows up in the pictures in the house... so did mona hire Elaine to be able to keep in touch so she can get with beau? or was she a paid actor from the start meant to get beau's attention... A flimsy piece of evidence for Elaine being a paid actor from the start is because whenever she would talk to Beau, her mom would yell for her to stop and come back. That could mean she knows who beau is and that mona wasserman is his mother (the wife of the man she had a child with). Or most likely she noticed the chubby pedophile in the background being not so subtle, and wanted to keep her daughter safe. Also the dad being a giant dick monster could be real and not in beau's head, remember that Mona and the people working in her home are like cult members, they feed the giant monster humans. Maybe Mona was so upset with her husband cheating on her she did drug tests on him and turned him into that? because beau was used for her drug testing and he has big nuts. I think Mona is alot more insane than we realize.

Right now i found this movie impossible to watch more than 50 minutes - not saying it was bad but it was hard - we got to watch 3 hours and with this movie is not an easy task - cause is very tough and hard and heavy and mad, all togheter - so you really have to be in a goog mood , wich may sound as nonsense cause is furious madness going on - again, this was tough to finish for me cheers

I need this movie explained by Birthday Boy Stab Man.