“You gotta start focusing on the positive,” is one of the first lines Joseph Lee, as George, says to his wife, Amy, when she arrives home visibly upset. What he doesn’t know is that Amy has just finished racing home from a road rage incident that will change their lives forever. In Lee Sung Jin’s remarkable limited series contender, Beef, George is meant to be a moral compass even when he is hiding secrets of his own.
We never wonder if George will ever do the right thing. Lee embodies George with a frustratingly calm demeanor that only colors outside the lines when he feels pushed. Ali Wong’s Amy is easier to trigger, so I wondered if it was difficult for George to keep calm. Was he raised to always speak and act respectfully? Did living in the shadow of his famous artist father condition George to not step out of line? Lee simmers a lot of George’s emotions underneath the surface, and he expertly makes George a watchful eye as his wife continues her larger downward spiral.
Because she is so close to finalizing the deal of selling her business, Amy tends to talk about money, but does George, a man who has always had money, also feel like he would be lost without it? He is a successful artist in his own right (as it Lee himself), but would George ever be a starving one? Since he doesn’t have as much experience vocalizing his feelings, they always come out in a sudden, or even sometimes startling, way. When George and Amy are performing a therapeutic exercise for their marriage counseling, he drops a bomb by revealing,” I embrace the sadness…I sometimes wonder what our lives would’ve been like we never met.” George is used to expressing himself through his art, so words aren’t always his strong suit.
Lee’s performance is one that I kept coming back to because of how thoughtful it is. Beef makes us question the traditional roles of masculinity in a marriage, and George is evolved enough to want to better himself. He’s not afraid of emotions, but he isn’t always prepared for someone’s reaction to them.
Beef is streaming now on Netflix.
