“For want of a nail …”
Requiem for a Dream (2000), The Fountain (2006), and Uncut Gems (2019) are examples of a type of film which is well-made, thoughtful, subject to acclaim, and less likely to be revisited, the latter not a matter of performances, direction, or anything technical, but, rather, an issue of subject matter or application of narrative tension. Joining this particular category of film is director/co-writer Caye Casas’s (Killing God) horror thriller The Coffee Table (La mesita del comedor), which released in select U.S. theaters in April and is now coming available on DVD and VOD via Cinephobia Releasing May 14th in the U.S. and on digital via Second Sight Films on May 20th. Co-written by Casas and first-time screenwriter Cristina Borobia, The Coffee Table is a gripping horror show, the kind of story that doesn’t incorporate the supernatural, myths or legends, or otherwise twist the logic of reality to conjure tension or terror, but uses interpersonal tension and human horror to upend audiences from uncomfortable start to disquieting end.
New parents Jesus (David Pareja) and Maria (Estefanía de los Santos) have recently moved into his grandmother’s vacant apartment in order to have more space for them and their infant son. Maria has made the majority of the decisions, so Jesus is adamant that he gets to select their new coffee table. A mixture of actual appreciation and desire to aggravate Maria guides his selection process: a gaudy design featuring two gold-covered female forms holding up a glass sheet. The seller (Eduardo Antuña) informs them that such a table will change their life, and he couldn’t be more right.
L-R: David Pareja as Jesus, Eduardo Antuña as Salesman, and Estefanía de los Santos as Maria in THE COFFEE TABLE. Photo courtesy of Cinephobia Releasing.
The Coffee Table is the kind of film you should go into knowing the least about it before watching. So, while initial release reviews here tend to be spoiler-free, even what follows might be considered a spoiler as it sets expectations or enables media literate readers to perhaps divine the shape in the shadows of what is mentioned. As a husband and a father of two, The Coffee Table hit me really hard and left me a sobbing mess for the majority of it, so consider that your final warning before you press play.
To explore this film, we’re going to break it up into three parts: the narrative, technical approach, and the performances.
What Casas and Borobia put together is downright chilling, and it’s primarily because of the way it utilizes an element of intrusive thought/post-partum depression in order to traumatize the audience via the characters. Rather than utilize obvious exposition, Casas and Borobia establish the relationship between the two central characters by way of the purchase of the table. As they argue about it, longtime festering issues come to the surface, establishing that while the couple clearly has affection for each other, the pregnancy and delivery of their child created a wedge between them. As the film goes on and the script twists regular conversation into flesh-rending barbs, we, the audience, long for relief as much as the characters who are under duress do. The narrative taking place over the course of hours within a single day, Casas and Borobia purposefully make sure that the audience is placed in a position of confidence with both Jesus and Maria so that when terrible things happen and someone makes an innocuous, even loving comment, it becomes a wound that hurts us as much as the ones already in traumatic stress. We become like them who seek to delay detection: terrified of what will come next, terrified of how to come clean with the truth, and terrified yet needing to come clean so as to gain some relief. This is the tension, the push-pull which Casas and Borobia utilize as the foundation for all the pain, sorrow, and “comedy” that flow throughout the film. Smartly, obstacles to revelations come naturally, enabling the narrative to extend well past the point of audience comfort. (Again, sobbing.)
Which brings us to the technical approach of the film, specifically the editing handled by Casas and the cinematography from Alberto Morago (Casting). Both are as important to the film as the narrative and performances because of how they impact what the audience knows or thinks they know, weaponizing our imaginations by placing in our minds the absolute worst and then building from there. This means keeping action or activity at a distance, framing character movement through a hallway so that we are close enough to hear intimately, but not so close as to lay eyes on them. The proximity implies safety, while the lack of vision creates uncertainty, making what follows within the scene all the more heartrending. This means establishing set and scene via quick cuts so as to convey character disorientation and cerebral discombobulation. There’s only so much a performance can do to imply internal struggle, but with a bit of abrasive editing of a scene and cinematography that shifts focus or blurs elements of the frame, the audience is quickly able to understand the psychology of what we’re observing. Most importantly, these technical aspects, especially when working in concert, present moments that, though nothing is confirmed, contain incredible and devastating weight just via suggestion at the mere idea of what something might be and that notion is never anything harmless.
Estefanía de los Santos as Maria in THE COFFEE TABLE. Photo courtesy of Cinephobia Releasing.
The final piece to the overwhelming puzzle is the performances. It’s a tricky thing to convey the complexity of a shift in a relationship once a child comes into play in a way that feels understood or universal, yet this cast nails it. The script does specifically call out the distance between the pair, using the opening of the movie to identify what Jesus sees as Maria’s controlling behavior and his reduction within the dynamic of he, her, and their son. But it’s the performances from Pareja and de los Santos which convey the depth of love that remains between them. Through conversation with others, we do get the sense that the couple had to go to great lengths to get pregnant, creating the suggestion that Jesus felt a little left out of the equation after a point. However, in their scenes together, there’s never a sense that Jesus resents Maria to the point of toxicity, more than he’s failed to communicate his needs to her. Similarly, as de los Santos engages with the material, Maria is just a little aware of how dominating her energy is to the relationship, yet is uncertain how to pull back. Thus, when the horror happens and the audience is in league with the individual at the heart of it, the dialogue offered by the actors transforms through their performance to take on multiple meanings and reveal delicate and difficult truths. Their performances make the excruciating pain we, the audience, observe all the more upsetting.
Watching The Coffee Table, one can’t help but think of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Tell-Tale Heart, a story about guilt and the way it consumes someone. Casas infuses his film with a similar sound and visual affectation so that even when there’s peace or calm, the horror isn’t far from our or the characters’ minds, thereby creating a psychological bomb waiting to go off. The payoff for the film isn’t as satisfying as one may want, but given the premise and plot, it does seem an inevitability. Also, though billed as a dark comedy, there’s little to actually laugh at, the subgenre title application likely pointing to the dissonance between the truth of the situation and the false reality the character presume they are experiencing. This is not specifically a ding against the film, so much as a significant piece of evaluation for while other films like 1998’s Very Bad Things qualify as both comedic and crime thriller, which gets *very* messy. The Coffee Table is simply repeated heartbreak that beats you over and over as it does the characters within.
David Pareja as Jesus in THE COFFEE TABLE. Photo courtesy of Cinephobia Releasing.
Again, the above is crafted in a way to preserve as many of the surprises within the film as possible, including identifying the inciting incident and who it impacts. The Coffee Table is a hell of a thriller that will positively break you down until you don’t think you can go any lower, and then it’ll break you again. All for want of a screw.
In select theaters beginning April 19th, 2024.
Available on DVD and VOD May 14th, 2024.
Available on digital in the U.K. via Second Sight Films May 20th, 2024.
For more information, head to the official Cinephobia Releasing The Coffee Table webpage.
Final Score: 4 out of 5.
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Categories: Home Release, Home Video, Recommendation, Reviews, streaming
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