I'll Take It Black

 

I'm going to make a declarative objective statement about something that is very much subjective: black comedy is the most divisive of all film genres. Either you click with a movie's intentionally polarizing sense of humor, or you find it deplorable. There is very little room in between.

Especially when it involves...

(SPOILER ALERT THAT YOU SHOULD PROBABLY KNOW GOING IN TO KNOW IF THIS IS GOING TO BE OKAY FOR YOU OR NOT)...

adorable dead babies.

Quick Plot: Opening credits read as an instruction manual for assembling the titular piece of furniture. Maybe it's because I just assembled my own outdoor cart by following pictures that kind of matched tiny parts, but this graphic design decision pleased me grandly.

Meet Jesus and Maria, a very tired married couple navigating the stress of new parenthood in a small city apartment. Despite the bags hanging under her eyes, Maria is actually quite happy. Years of IVF have finally given her exactly what she wanted: infant Cayetano. 

Jesus is less enthused. An overgrown child of sorts, he seems overwhelmed with fatherhood. It doesn't help that the 13-year-old neighbor down the hall is madly in love with him.

What does all of this have to do with a coffee table, you might ask? Doesn't EVERYTHING come down to your choice of coffee table?

Much to Maria's annoyance, Jesus insists on purchasing an incredibly tacky glass table complete with nude women posing as the legs in extremely fake gold. It's clearly his way of holding onto some remnant of his own identity, making a decision completely separate from both his wife and child. It's certainly not the worst crime a new father can commit. 

That comes a few minutes later. 

Spoilers for a movie that, as I've warned, is probably best slightly spoiled in order to know if you can stand it. Maria exits the apartment to do some grocery shopping (even THAT has some bitterness, as it's for a small dinner party for Jesus's not entirely welcome brother and much younger girlfriend). After realizing he's missing a component to complete his table's assembly, Jesus turns away just long enough for something to go terribly, terribly wrong: the unbreakable glass shatters and decapitates his only child. 

What does one do in that kind of situation? Call the authorities? Scream? Throw yourself out a window? Tell your wife?

In the case of Jesus, hide the evidence, go into shock, and host the world's most awkward dinner party in European history. 

Directed by Caye Casas (who also co-wrote with Cristina Borobia), The Coffee Table is a brutally uncomfortable film. It takes the cringe humor of something like The Office at its most extreme and turns it inside out to expose every part you'd rather not witness.

It's also very funny.

(ducks)

But I understand if you don't agree! 

High Points

There is some VERY funny writing here in Cases and Borobia's script, particularly around the wonderfully wry Ruth (perfectly played by Gala Flores) and her inappropriate obsession

Low Points

I understand that The Coffee Table is ultimately Jesus's story, but it feels a little bit of a cheat to not give us insight into Maria's final decision

Lessons Learned

A furniture salesman can solve your table problems, not name your newborn

Never recommend a book of poetry to a teenager, even if it's for a school project

Cowards never admit they're in love

Rent/Bury/Buy

If you (not unjustly) have an absolute zero tolerance for dead babies, The Coffee Table is not the film for you. But if your sense of humor is appropriately twisted, give it a go on Kanopy.