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Critic Reviews
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Polish up those Emmys for the year’s best and most addictive new series—a tale of LA road rage starring Stephen Yuen and Ali Wong (both perfection) that explodes with fun, feeling and rule-breaking experimentation. Nobody who sees it is going to shut up about it.
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“Beef,” which plays like “Falling Down” meets “Changing Lanes” with a little bit of “White Lotus” for good measure, but stands on its own as a bold, darkly funny, emotionally bruising, provocative and wicked-smart social satire — the best series I’ve seen this year.
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Testament to wonderful writing and superb performances. The best new series of the year so far has just cut you up – now go chase it down.
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"Beef" is magnificent and maniacal, an utterly unique story that spins the everyday into the epic. Anchored by outstanding performances by Steven Yeun and Ali Wong as the feuding drivers who gleefully trash their own lives in pursuit of revenge, "Beef" is depraved without being heartless.
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What makes this one of the most invigorating, surprising and insightful debuts of the past year is how personally and culturally specific its study of anger is. Every unhappy person in it is unhappy in a different and fascinating way.
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The half-hours fly by as wild twists twists pile up. What’s less expected, however — and what really lingers once the dust has settled — is the series’ emphasis on the characters’ flawed humanity, and its disarming sense of empathy for their existential despair. ... A pair of spectacular performances. ... Each joke grows from characters performed and written so vividly, they seem to leap off the screen.
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A smart, sophisticated comedy with an ideal cast, artful direction, polished production design. ... 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.
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Yeun and Wong are both excellent, meeting the material and consistently finding new wrinkles, new layers, in their characters.
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Seriously, Emmy voters better be watching. Boosted by tremendous editing, cinematography, and an impressive supporting cast, Beef is ready for its (Michelin) star.
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Much like the characters themselves, it is a series that is wrapped in an angry outer shell that reveals itself to have a compassionate inside that can either break free or be obliterated. Even as you never know which will end up coming to pass, you’re locked in for the ride.
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With Beef, creator Lee Sung Jin and his stellar cast have crafted an almost operatic tale about the cost of unaddressed rage, narcissism, and trauma. It’s funny, it’s harrowing, and it’s exceptionally original in portraying two damaged people who find their mirror selves in a random parking lot dust-up.
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While the ethnic variety of "Beef" may be potent, the more critical element in its cascading series of errors, embarrassments and calamities is precisely the shared feeling of cosmic displacement—and unfairness—that bonds our two heroes, such as they are; their very particular personalities give the series its energy.
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Danny and Amy might not appear to have in common, but they share a hidden bond in their seemingly inexhaustible supply of pettiness and hostility. “Beef” takes that dynamic, marinates in it, and somehow serves up a four-star meal.
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I challenge you to find another series that channels the spectrum of fury as wildly, beautifully and crazily while, for the most part, maintaining its focal clarity.
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“Beef” is a comedy, but it’s just as powerfully a drama about two lost and lonely people chasing each other, and chasing each other away. The acting is strong throughout. Wong makes Amy’s raw fury hit home, both comically and dramatically, but she’s always sympathetic. Likewise, Yeun elevates Danny’s wrath into something complex.
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Amy’s attempts to find catharsis lead her to make decisions that range from farcical to frightening, if not outright criminal. In her, Lee conveys the thrill and desperation of that never-ending search for release—a journey that pushes Beef forward, step by fascinating step. Wong sells each of them. She’s never been funnier, or more heartbreaking.
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I found the way the writing and acting here thread that needle to be invigorating. The unpredictability adds to the tension. The next scene could be funny or terrifying. Anything could happen. Your whole life could change because of a honked horn.
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Through three episodes (out of an eventual 10), the direction and acting continue to be superb.
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Mar 31, 2023There are times when Beef’s mix of deliciously dark comedy and gentle-hearted empathy doesn’t quite coalesce. ... But that doesn’t make the show’s complicated, compassionate depiction of mental health or riotous portrayal of just how liberating it can be to indulge our pettiest impulses any less satisfying to sink your teeth into.
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All the independent story threads are eventually tied together, and some of the final episodes of BEEF are among the best dramatic television ever brought us. Still, it might take some time for the series to finally click, a side effect of its unique perspective and unexpected tone. However, once BEEF finds its footing, it becomes a delicious drama with shocking turns, capable of dealing with complex themes with both levity and grace.
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A sophisticated, tightly looping black comedy or just two immature fools apocalyptically trolling each other. It is both things at once and so much more.
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A story that’s full of drama and emotion, punctuated with moments of comedy that are truly dark.
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It’s a dark, existential thriller about cynical people confronting a deep sadness within. And this – despite several very funny lines of dialogue – doesn’t easily translate to light entertainment. Yet this Beef, when marinated in creator Lee Sung Jin’s unique perspective and tenderised by unexpected plot twists, soon becomes a delicacy worth savouring.
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Anyone who’s ever wanted to rage against a fellow motorist will feel piercingly seen by this 10-part Netflix affair (produced by A24), and if it eventually goes somewhat off the rails toward its conclusion—albeit in a manner meant to echo its characters—it remains a surprising and amusing investigation of behind-the-wheel fury and the underlying forces that fuel it.
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For the most part, Lee and his writers succeed. Though some of the show’s more elaborate jokes are strained, Beef otherwise has a taut, offbeat humor that distinguishes it from plenty of banally crude we-can-say-swears comedies that have clogged up premium cable and streaming services in the last ten years.
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[Beef] is like picking at a scab or pushing on the edge of a bruise — a paradoxically pleasurable sensation of anxiety and satisfaction — and Yeun and Wong’s vibrating, hostile chemistry makes for engaging feel-bad TV that critiques the very notion of inner peace.
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The series is interested in serving up the fights viewers want to see, but it also peels back layers of the characters to ultimately reveal how similar Danny and Amy are. Whether it’s healthy for easily-triggered viewers to tune in to watch others get triggered, well, each viewer will have to decide on their own.
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I respect “Beef” more than I enjoyed the experience of watching it, but it is wonderfully compelling.
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Just as it seems that Beef is going to go full misanthrope in its chaotic, surreal final episodes, the show pulls itself back from the brink of utter hopelessness at the end.
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“Beef” remains eminently watchable (so long as your nerves can tolerate such needlessly risky behavior) and its riveting performances make the five-plus hours a worthy investment. The limited series may jump the shark in its back half, but in doing so, it also mimics the contradictory emotions tied to its core conflict.
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Beef throws a lot of ideas at the wall to varying degrees of effectiveness, but it sticks its landing by reiterating its core theme, which is that life is hard and often terrible, and the most you can hope for is finding someone who really gets you despite it all.
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The bulk of the series consists of two people acting foolishly, every step forward followed by a giant leap back, again and again and again. And again. Yet if you hang on, some light finally does break in. (Even then, the show will toy with you.) And at long last, you might call it a comedy.
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The series’ portraiture is most compelling when the alienation experienced by the characters achieves a larger sociological resonance. ... The layers of repressed despair shaken loose by Amy and Danny’s feud are so precisely crafted that “Beef” can’t help but disappoint when, toward the season’s end, the stakes are raised to the melodrama of cinematic violence. ... In a series with such a clear-eyed view of human darkness, the eleventh-hour fuzzies aren’t given enough time for the warmth to sink in.
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[Ali Wong and Steven Yeun] forge a chemistry that anchors “Beef” through its stop-and-start pacing and wild tonal swings. ... When “Beef” keeps its focus on these characters and the worlds they inhabit — like the Orange County Korean church where Danny starts to volunteer, or the high-powered conference where Amy sermonizes about “having it all” — the more it does right by the performers at its heart.
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What makes “Beef” compellingly watchable is the crackling chemistry between Wong and Yeun. ... For the most part, the heavy absurdity in “Beef” works, but there are a few off notes. ... Its use of this weapon feels painful when considering the deadly toll of gun violence in the United States, especially after the Monterey Park killings shattered Asian American communities so recently. I also took issue with the series’ casting of millionaire graffiti artist David Choe as Isaac, Danny’s volatile, villainous cousin.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 60 out of 88
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Mixed: 19 out of 88
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Negative: 9 out of 88
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Apr 9, 2023Great acting, great directing, a truly original piece of work. Many laugh out loud moments - yes over the top, but bring it on! More like this!
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Apr 7, 2023
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Apr 9, 2023