I watched Netflix’s Beef a couple weeks ago and have been pondering its absurdity for a while.
Beef is an emotional dive into expectation and unhappiness that can feed into our every day lives and experiences, culminating in a kind of entitled desperation. While our characters both seem to be lost in their personal lives, Amy is a wealthy woman while Danny is blue collar. The class divide seems like a set up in the beginning of the show, where the evil capitalist’s pettiness is laughable. This ends up quite differently. Danny is just as petty and entitled as Amy is. In fact they both perpetuate the beef as a result of this. In a kind of desperate attempt to get control of their lives, they need the beef, at the least, to be something they have control over, where they may have none otherwise. They continuously re-play their cards to gain the upperhand.
One thing I love about this show is the unexpected creep factor. There are a couple scenes that seem to point to Lynch’s Mullholland Drive. Additionally, the shots of the ground indicate something is buried that’s trying to come up. We do see them both have a kind of rebirthing experience and get where each other is coming from on a deeper level, eventually, but this imagery seems far more complicated to me. Because it is shown so often, it feels like there’s more to it than what we see.
Lastly, the acting is so believably good. Both main characters manage to hold the dark humour so well. Some of the side characters add to their brilliance through this back and forth play.
What did you think of Beef?
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