It is a nicely filmed sequence, quite suspenseful, and perfectly timed. But it took one frame to set the tone of the whole show, a shot of Ali Wong’s character Amy behind the steering wheel of her white SUV, smiling nervously, listening to O-Town’s ‘Liquid Dreams’; we’re dealing with millennials and a lot of bottled up teen angst, which we can appropriately now call ‘adult angst’.
Created by LA-based Korean writer Lee Sung Jin and co-directed by Hikari and Jake Schreier, ‘Beef’ boasts stylized visual storytelling, unnerving score and sound design, and a fast pace to keep the viewer on edge and go along with the characters’ unhinged choices. Yet it is mostly its writing and its soundtrack choices, from Hoobastank’s to Keane’s and other similar, era-defining bands’ iconic tracks, that offer us insight on who these people are, played to perfection by Ali Wong and Steven Yeun, among other people.
While it is clearly a story about Asian American millennials who are not first-generation immigrants, it is still a look at millennials in general and their current problems, from intergenerational trauma to impostor syndrome to burnout to mental health and unresovled anger issues. ‘Anger is just a transitory state of consciousness’ says one character. Amy feels like a ‘snake chasing its tail’; ‘Everything fades’, she says, of her expectations about success. Happiness seems to come from things you can control, which is not much in a world that is crumbling, therefore constantly conspiring against us. Adult angst is unfortunately alive and well, and beautifully portrayed in ‘Beef’, currently streaming on Netflix.
ALSO READ: ‘AIR’, A TESTAMENT TO BEN AFLECK’S DIRECTIORIAL SKILLS.
