The Beta Test – A Toothless Satire (Early Review)

The Beta Test is a peculiar satire that focuses on people who already exist as outrageous caricatures in the minds of most audience members. You could tell an average Joe that Hollywood agents stick gerbils up their butts as part of a bizarre sex ritual and they would probably believe you. When people are aware of the existence of Robert Evans, Walter Wanger and Harvey Weinstein, it becomes difficult to come up with an exaggerated, slightly ridiculous version of top Hollywood agents. Most satires play on the idea that they take place in a heightened, over the top world in which everybody is slightly more eccentric than they really would be. The audience is meant to laugh at the ‘fake’ people and events that they are seeing, before realizing that they are eerily realistic. This film is too realistic to shock or elicit laughter. It feels like it is set in a perfectly realistic version of Hollywood, making for more of a dry dissection of an industry that is rotten to the core.

The Beta Test primarily targets slimy Hollywood agents/producers who try to leech money off of talented individuals and wealthy businessmen. Co-director Jim Cummings stars as Jordan, a Hollywood agent who can sense that his days are numbered in a changing industry. He is engaged to Caroline (Newcomb) but finds himself intrigued by a letter that invites him to have an anonymous sexual encounter in a hotel room. He ends up showing up for the appointment and is amazed by the skill of his sexual partner but worries about one of his competitors blackmailing him with nude photographs. His life is destroyed as a result of his paranoid behavior and becomes obsessed with finding out whether he was seduced for nefarious purposes.

One of the main issues with the screenplay is that it fails to set up any real stakes. Though it is set in this decade, it features a protagonist who seems to think that his entire world will be upended if he is caught cheating on his wife. This might have been believable if the film had been set in the 1950s, when most Americans were conservative Christians who thought that adultery was a mortal sin, but people don’t get terribly fussed about adultery in 2021. His career means everything to him and it wouldn’t be damaged if he started spending all of his time with high class call girls. Most people just expect Hollywood agents to be playboys who are constantly seen in the company of beautiful young women. Viewers never fully understand why Jordan is so afraid of breaking up with a woman who seems to constantly annoy and irritate him. His anxieties don’t make sense and his transgressions seem incredibly tame for a person who works in the entertainment industry.

Having said all that, the screenwriters of The Beta Test do craft a lot of scenes that make the audience uncomfortable. Watching a completely phony, insincere agent trying to endear himself to a ruthless businessman who can see through his act is a very painful experience. Viewers will find themselves hating everybody involved but they also want the agent to stop embarrassing himself. He thinks that he’s getting somewhere with this businessman when he’s really just digging himself into a hole. These scenes did tap into the very real anxiety that people feel when they imagine working in an industry that asks them to constantly put themselves out there and submit themselves to public scrutiny.

McCabe’s performance as PJ, Jordan’s close friend and colleague, is also subtly unnerving. He is very good at masking his contempt for the people who surround him and has one of the best shit-eating grins in the business. He’s a slippery fish and it is very difficult to tell whether he is ridiculing his best friend or offering him support. When viewers see him emotionally manipulating his closest allies, it is easy to see why so many people believe that the film industry fosters a toxic environment.

The Beta Test does seem like a toothless satire that fails to sink its teeth into the politically fraught issues that it wants to target. Unfortunately, the film feels like it’s a few years behind the times and struggles to keep up with a world that is constantly changing and evolving. This might have seemed pungent and highly relevant in the pre-#metoo era but, from a modern perspective, it doesn’t break any new ground.

still courtesy of Vortex Media

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Zita Short

I am passionate about screwball comedies from the 1930s and certain actresses from the Golden Age of Hollywood. I’ll aim to review new Netflix releases and write features, so expect a lot of romantic comedies and cult favourites.