"Beau is afraid" is three hours long, and would have benefited from a slightly harsher editing, especially when it comes to the animated part that tells Beau's life from a theater stage. "It's Oedipal and surreal, but Aster twists that concept a few more times – in a suggestive, inventive and consecrated pictorial work that makes full use of the medium," writes Fredrik Sahlin.
"A harrowing excursion through a broken man's thicket to soul. They are Ingmar Bergman, Luis Buñuel and Michel Gondry. Rather three hours of individuality than 90 minutes of banalities," he adds.