The Great American Scream

BEEF
Cast: Steven Yeun, Ali Wong | Director: Lee Sung Jin | English | Netflix

Two cars meet outside a supermarket. One honks, the other responds with a chase. Is it the start of something beautiful? No, it’s more the start of a clash of personalities, class, culture, and ideals. Danny (Steven Yeun) is a down-and-out South Korean immigrant for whom the great American dream has soured. Amy (Ali Wong) has a seemingly perfect life, married to a calm Japanese man, eating fancy deconstructed mushroom pizza at swish homes, and living in a beautiful house with a recently remodeled kitchen. What begins as a stray incident of road rage snowballs into mutually assured destruction. Smartly written, it is an observation of the way we live now. Western therapy doesn’t work on eastern minds, says Yeun to Wong. Sometimes rock bottom is your trampoline, he says. Wong’s calm Japanese husband is given to making statements such as, “Anger is just a transitory state of consciousness.” If ever there was a series that captures the zeitgeist of new age homilies and 21st-century joblessness, it is this. We are often shown the possibilities of American life but increasingly with movies such as Nomadland and series such as Maid, the alternative universe of ruined lives and marginalised people is becoming visible on the screen, big and small. Danny and Amy are two people who embody the anxieties of life in the world’s most prosperous democracy.

Why watch it ? For the pleasure of recognising yourself in many eye-rolling scenes.

The Family Woman

Mrs Undercover | Cast: Radhika Apte, Sumeet VyasDirector: Anushree Mehta Hindi | Zee5

Think Family Woman in a superhero leotard, swooping in to end crime, hair blowing back thanks to the studio fan. And then think of Mrs Undercover where Durga (Radhika Apte) has been prepping for over a decade waiting to be sent on a top secret assignment. She has a deep cover, as a homemaker in a Kolkata family, and as an orphan, is happy having to look after ageing in-laws, a careless husband and a playful child. She even tolerates her husband’s jibes about her being just a housewife. But there is a man on the loose who is killing strong, independent women who want to make a difference to society and Durga is the only agent who can save the city. It’s good to see Apte on the screen after a while, and tap into her comic side, first discovered in Monica, O My Darling.

Why watch it ? A climax involving dance, Durga, and declamations about woman power

Rebels of Suburbia

Tiny Beautiful Things | Cast: Kathryn Hahn, Merritt WeverDirector: Liz TigelaarDisney+Hotstar

Irresponsible women, according to societal standards, make for interesting viewing. It’s usually inter-generational trauma that prevents them from living socially accepted lives, until they realise they don’t have to. Cheryl Strayed sets the bar high for such women, who fail so spectacularly that they end up as unique role models. Kathryn Hahn is having a career renaissance and here she plays a version of Strayed, based on her book of the same name, where she gives advice in an agony aunt column and discovers the joy of tiny, beautiful things.

Why watch it ? To see uncombed women doing deliciously decadent things in an otherwise orderly, suburban life

BEEF | Mrs Undercover | Tiny Beautiful ThingsDisney+HotstarentertainmentNetflixstreaming business