Review: BEEF Is Smart, Wild, and Darkly Funny. Why Doesn’t Netflix Make Shows Like This Anymore?
Implicit in every viral road rage video is the same question: What is wrong with these people? BEEF, a wild black comedy from first-time creator Lee Sung Jin that premieres April 6 on Netflix, delves deep into the sources and fallout of two L.A. motorists’ fury. Danny Cho (Steven Yeun) is a struggling contractor wracked with guilt over his immigrant parents’ involuntary return to Korea. Amy Lau (Ali Wong) longs to sell her thriving houseplant business and stay home with her husband George (Joseph Lee) and young daughter June (Remy Holt). Their parking-lot showdown leads to a ridiculous chase through suburbia—and then months of ever-escalating attempts to ruin each other’s lives.
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At first, this simple yet amusing premise seems better suited to a 90-minute feature than a 10-episode Netflix series. But it soon becomes apparent that Lee is doing more than just a live-action Looney Tunes bit. In between all the vicious pranks, we get insights into both characters’ unhappiness. Desperate to maintain the serene front that’s vital to her brand’s identity, Amy quietly seethes over a meddling mother-in-law (Patti Yasutake), the manipulations of a billionaire (Maria Bello) who’s flirting with acquiring the business, and George’s insistence on following in his artist father’s footsteps despite his obvious lack of talent. Danny is in debt to a potentially violent cousin (played with wildcard intensity by the artist David Choe) and feels responsible for his lazy, cryptocurrency-obsessed younger brother Paul (Young Mazino). “That’s what’s wrong with the world today: they want you to feel like you have no control,” he rants.
As it progresses, the show fleshes out not just its leads, but also their families, who face stressors and disappointments of their own. The irony is that for all their atrocious behavior, Danny, Amy, and most of the people around them are not, at their core, evil. Each is capable of kindness. But by failing to extend empathy to other characters in pain—and to acknowledge the deep-seated origins of their anger—everyone ends up contributing to a rapidly accelerating crisis.
One of several upcoming TV projects from A24, the studio behind Best Picture winners Everything Everywhere All at Once and Moonlight, Beef is the kind of series—a smart, sophisticated comedy with an ideal cast, artful direction, polished production design—that Netflix has mostly stopped making. It’s also the rare show that, like Everything, honors the differences in class, ethnicity, and personality that make each of its mostly Asian-American characters unique, rather than flattening them into some idealized exercise in “positive representation.” It’s a remarkably confident debut from Dave and Undone vet Lee, and one that keeps upping its ante until the bitter, big-hearted end.