All the characters portrayed in Row, the black comedy that has won five Emmy Awards, belongs to the Asian community in the United States, which is increasingly gaining prominence in the audiovisual sector. But they might be from any other origin and nothing much would change. Don’t expect to delve into the sociology of what some call a model minority (they say this to criminalize other minorities).
The two characters who swear eternal hatred in Row, a Netflix production of 10 half-hour chapters, belong to different social classes: one makes a poor living doing tinkering and lives with his brother in a small apartment, the other is a businesswoman who moves in high society and tries to close a million-dollar deal. . That doesn’t matter: there is no satire of competitive capitalism here nor a denunciation of inequality as in Parasites o The squid game. This fight is not class.
The best of Bronca, Beef In English, it is that it appeals to universal emotions of the human being, which do not depend on time or place, not even on the social and cultural context even if it has one. A very minor traffic incident between two vehicles, of which there are hundreds every day in Los Angeles and in any city, crosses the lives of two beings who should not have crossed paths. They will become obsessed with resentment and enter into a spiral of revenge. And they won’t realize that their lives were already complicated before, that somehow they were already falling apart. That they didn’t need any more problems. But nothing can stop them.
We will also see that the personalities of these unfortunate people were not so different. That they hate each other because they look alike. Yes, there is a reflection on loneliness in the contemporary world, on dysfunctional relationships, that of two humble brothers and that of a wealthy couple. Much more is talked regarding (regarding Instagram, regarding cryptocurrencies, regarding the art market, regarding life in the urbanization) through the characters, but nothing is as central here as incorrigible human imperfection.
The interpretation of the protagonists is very believable, within the nonsense: Ali Wong (known for her humorous monologues, Californian daughter of a Vietnamese and Chinese father) and Steven Yeun (seen in to the pain or en The Walking Dead, born in Seoul). And the secondary ones work: the brother, the husband, the mother-in-law, the friend, a very arrogant investor. The creator and director is a newcomer: Lee Sung Jin, also of Korean origin, from the scriptwriting team of Undone o Silicon Valley, and who has already signed with Netflix for several years following this exhibition of talent. This story has a beginning and an end, a shocking end, but the director does not rule out a continuity of Row in the form of an anthology, that is, with new plots and characters in each season.
We all know peaceful people who become angry behind the wheel of anyone who doesn’t give way when they should. It doesn’t just happen at the wheel. There are those who take care of their own and are kind to strangers, but get angry at people they only know from TV. Or, even worse, those who hate entire groups, dehumanized without respecting their individuality. Hate is good business today: tell it to social networks, which make more money from you if they manage to make you angry, which is what they have trained their algorithms to do. Let them tell that to the demagogue political leaders who benefit from social anger. Too much anger induced.
Don’t expect Row a moral, nor a self-help message, nor a social portrait, nor a political position. Yes, there is a desire to delve into the darkest part of the human mind. In a way, these two lost souls hate each other because that’s how they feel alive.
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