Beau Is Afraid

Ari Aster first planned the long late stretch as stagecraft, with built sets revolving around the character. Once it was clear that resources and time would not reach that far, he settled on half stagecraft and half animation. The animation came from the Chilean pair Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña, who painted on large canvases photographed at 12 frames per second and cut in stop-motion passages. Bobby Krlic’s score was issued in five separate parts, one for each of the film’s five acts. The shape is not a single continuous journey but episodes set end to end, each pitched in its own register. At a net budget of 35 million dollars this was A24’s most expensive production until Civil War. It opened in 4 theatres, widened to 965, and finished at 12.3 million dollars worldwide. The first screening was an April Fools’ prank: the Brooklyn audience had bought tickets for the director’s cut of Midsommar and got this instead. Joaquin Phoenix was nominated at the 81st Golden Globes in the musical or comedy category, where Paul Giamatti won. A good fit if you can take a narrative rebuilt from the ground up at every act break. Not for anyone steering clear of what the BBFC lists together here: suicide, self-harm, sexual threat and injury detail.