‘The Beta Test’ turns fake Hollywood bravado into something antsy and pathetic
IFC
The opening scene of writer-director Jim Cummings’ breakout feature, 2018’s “Thunder Road,” remains one of the most memorable sequences of any kind in the last few years. In one long, vulnerable and painful and even a little funny take, a police officer (Cummings) delivers a eulogy for his late mother, breaking down and recovering, teetering on the edge of total disaster, letting his emotions boil over. It’s an incredible performance, and the word honest doesn’t do it justice.
“The Beta Test,” starring, directed and co-written by Cummings and PJ McCabe, also features a lead character whose implosion becomes external, but the causes are broader and more varied. In fact, that the film even works as well as it does is a credit to Cummings’ unique, off-center voice — essential considering the less-than-fresh examination of Hollywood, and specifically the subculture of agents, as cold and cutthroat and representative of all that is exhaustingly competitive and detrimental about American capitalism. “We’re not the angry bulldogs that ‘Entourage’ makes us out to be,” Jordan (Cummings) claims to a potential client (Wilky Lau), but throughout the movie Jordan’s desperation undermines his efforts to project the image of ruthless achievement that he thinks is necessary and may or may not prefer. Yet “The Beta Test” is hardly a pre-Ari Gold relic; it’s actually a satirical detective story, almost like a comedic blend of “You” and “The Neon Demon,” about the predictability, transparency, and, crucially, antiquated cruelty of the entitled patriarchy. It might be a stretch to call the film “The Player” for the Me Too era, but you could make a case.
Plotwise, actually, “The Beta Test” flirts with a familiar setup of fallible monogamy (earning a comparison to the trashy Victoria Justice vehicle “Trust” is not a great look for anyone) but survives because Cummings and McCabe turn their exploration of wealth, opportunity and infidelity into an escalating, tragic comedy of glitzy discontentment presented as victory. Though never as sharp as something like “Ingrid Goes West,” “The Beta Test,” particularly in a few moments of chilling, quiet violence, instantly releases terror into a world of dreams, where the lack of authenticity is so obvious that the power players no longer have any.
Engaged but curious, successful but self-conscious, Jordan is toxic masculinity exposed as a rising anxiety attack, a portrait that contains empathy while not quite focusing enough on the connection between the premise’s contrived through line (better to leave that vague; just know it involves mysterious RSVPs) and the relationships that the filmmakers seek to indict. The criticism feels too broad to fully connect, not entirely dissimilar to the ways in which “Promising Young Woman” asked us not to look too closely behind its setup about likewise dangerous interpersonal dynamics pretending to be acceptable.
The flaws hardly undermine the impact, though, with Cummings continuing to develop the ability to deliver a gasp and a laugh in short, surprising succession. In “The Beta Test,” time’s up for false pleasantries and casual deception and unearned exceptionalism, but, it seems, only because people aren’t sure they can get away with it anymore. Though not for lack of trying.
B
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