An engaged Hollywood agent receives a mysterious letter for an anonymous sexual encounter and becomes ensnared in a sinister world of lying, infidelity, and digital data.... (Full plot summary below)
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An engaged Hollywood agent receives a mysterious letter for an anonymous sexual encounter and becomes ensnared in a sinister world of lying, infidelity, and digital data.
Leave your thoughts about The Beta Test.
| EmpireJordan KingWhilst occasionally breathless to the point of exhausting, there’s nothing second-rate about The Beta Test, a sharp satire on the film industry that really packs a punch. |
| Austin ChronicleTrace SauveurIt’s an erotic thriller set-up matched with the sort of morally dubious character that would have De Palma’s ears perked, but it plays like more of a farce in practice. |
| The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzA bold, raw, bordering-on-manic mashup of Eyes Wide Shut, Ivans XTC and HBO’s Entourage, the new thriller-cum-satire The Beta Test is here to test your limits. |
| Slant MagazineChuck BowenUnderneath the film’s seeming casualness is an astute portrait of alcoholism, as well as a knowing glimpse of how micro tensions affect macro power plays, from pissing contests between men to sexual violations. |
| Paste MagazineDom SinacolaAgainst a lean genre construction, Cummings sputters and apologizes and screams at people and breaks things—vaping constantly—less a force of nature than a flesh-and-blood body half-failing to contain the whiny forces of nature within. His performance is a miracle of control and timing, focused by how little control Jordan has in his life, how poorly timed everything seems to be. |
| VarietyOwen GleibermanThe movie, at its best, holds you in its grip. |
| Los Angeles TimesCarlos AguilarGhastly humor coated in serrated-edged commentary on corrosive power creeps in through Jordan’s yearnings for a world before online accountability. |
| The PlaylistRodrigo PerezOverall, Cummings and McCabe’s film touches a raw nerve with sharp, funny, awkwardly prickly provocation. |
| RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzIt takes prodigious comic gifts to make a loathsome, pathetic character so mesmerizing that you enjoy watching him dig himself into a hole for 90-plus minutes. Jim Cummings, the star, editor, co-writer, and co-director of The Beta Test, has those gifts. |
| IndieWireDavid EhrlichIn a film that barely has a grasp over its own hare-brained conspiracy and often feels like an extension of the mental breakdown that its protagonist might be suffering . . . Cummings’ performance adds a key measure of consistency. |
