On Netflix they produce like hotcakes. It is a fact. Neither is given special priority to surprising, which can be understood to a certain extent when one looks at the viewing figures for bets like Wednesday or The Night Agent, and the most original or most sensitive bets often go unnoticed before the umpteenth popcorn premiere and regulate. And, as a server is usually critical of the leading streaming company, it is also necessary to be clear when things are done well: Bronca (Beef), which lands on the platform this Thursday, is one of those series that cries out to be a priority . An original proposal.
Danny (Steven Yeun) tries to return some appliances in a store when the salesperson makes him feel bad because it is the fifth time he bought them to return them (and later the viewer understands why he has this strange consumer attitude). Amy (Ali Wong), who has been trying to take her business to the next level for some time, is physically and mentally exhausted from having to put on an impeccable facade as an entrepreneur, wife and mother. And, when the two of them are about to collide with cars in the parking lot and she gives him the middle finger, her madness is unleashed. They don’t just chase each other down the road: they consciously choose to become bitter enemies.
Lee Sung Jin, born in South Korea but with a professional career in the United States with work on The Stranded in Philadelphia, Silicon Valley or Undone, signs this comedy that cannot be described in any other way than tense. It is a latent tension, then visible, always growing that, despite permeating the footage, does not detract from the work’s comic potential; and above all, it is a tension that makes it possible to differentiate Bronca in this increasingly frustrating ocean of fiction due to the volume of mediocre, conformist works that often lead to wasting time.
Bronca has a clear, elaborate speech, at times satirical, especially when Amy has to deal with an investor from the art world (Maria Bello) who is stupid, contradictory, banal but who, from a false closeness, imposes the power that money gives; or when talking about her cooking, expensive, almost brutalist, ridiculous, which represents the aesthetic void that a wealthy person can experience.
And, with an Ali Wong who knows how to evoke drama from his comic vision (his monologue in the Baby Cobra special was hilarious) and a Steven Yeun who justifies the reason for his stimulating career with each role (he left The walking dead and ended up opting for the Oscar for Minari), despair crumbles, that feeling of being run over by life. You can understand it from a person who chains one failure after another in a society willing to step on and finish off those who are not useful to the system to those who, despite succeeding (in a moderate or blatant way), feel that they do not reach everything , that the ideal life that is reflected when the children leave school or in the photos on social networks is not enjoyed in their day to day, run over by the demand.
The tension in Bronca is not always at the same level, especially the splendid start, but the starting point and the characters are too attractive to not be delighted with the proposal by the South Korean author and produced by A24, the production company behind Euphoria or the Oscar-winning All at once everywhere. How can you hate a comedy about two ordinary people who, to combat their frustration, choose to take it out on a stranger to mindless limits while trying to maintain a functional facade in front of their loved ones? You almost feel the urge to applaud them for channeling the rage of the day.
It is the pressure of adult life, of capitalist society, of the family, of the system that requires having a pristine and instagrammable image at all times. It is now.
