Dark comedies are inherently a tightrope act. The tone has to be on point if the full-blown absurdity of the circumstances is to be conveyed in its scabrous mix of the grueling and the grotesquely comic. Exaggeration and the overwhelmingness of a particular situation become fodder for the film to examine a heightened, deranged moral mess. The film has to mine the lunacy, the sliver of lunacy, as it piles on to be wholly effective. Any half-measure can potentially ruin the film. It is a tricky task that demands incredibly high artistic precision and chiseled control over the narrative’s beats. The chances of failure outrun those of cracking it.
Even if we deny our tentative prejudices, we come to such films with an inkling lodged deep within the films’ possible failure in impressing instead of catching fire. Therefore, the surplus burden of negatively laced anticipation becomes fundamentally linked to the viewing experience, threatening to color its final outcome. Therefore, Caye Casas’s “The Coffee Table” comes riding with several complicated expectations, not least because it has the positive recommendation of none other than horror master Stephen King himself.
The film opens with a couple and newly turned parents, Jesus (David Pareja) and Maria ( Estefania de los Santos), browsing for something to deck up their living room. The salesman pushes at them a particular coffee table they should consider buying. While Maria is dead set against it, Jesus is more amenable. The salesman extols the virtues of the table, especially its unbreakable glass. Maria is exasperated and impatient, but Jesus insists on it. Things between the couple are rough, perched on constant conflict.
There’s bitterness evident when he lashes at her for determining every aspect of their lives, including the name of their newborn, which he finds contemptible. An argument seems imminent. However, they repress it, heading back home. On the domestic front, Jesus is also plagued by a 13-year-old neighbor, Ruth, who is frantically infatuated with him. Ruth is adamant Jesus also has been displaying abundant romantic interest in her, leading her to develop feelings and expectations from him. She blackmails Jesus that if he doesn’t tell his wife about their relationship, she will. Jesus tries to deflect and hold her off, requesting her to see the sense that she is merely fabricating and imagining his attraction towards her to conveniently suit her fixation. Ruth stays undeterred.
However, it is not just Ruth, but almost everyone seems quite sexually drawn to Jesus. Even the salesman comes back in a later scene, attempting to hit on him quite overtly. Ruth’s mother also makes a pass. Maria, however, is mostly irascible and peevish with him. The couple has been trying for a child for a while. Although she is delighted at finally having a child, some weariness in the marriage has set in. It is palpable in nearly every other conversation between them, catalyzing disquiet and confrontation. As it turns out, there’s a screw missing with which to attach the glass to the table.
When Maria is out shopping, Jesus commits such a ghastly accident the film sends us into a place of horror. It is so sudden and unexpected and the pivoting event of the film that I wouldn’t divulge it. From that point onwards, the film shifts to encapsulating how long Jesus can afford to keep the real tragedy hidden. He is racked by guilt, fear, and loathing. He is on the verge of doing something drastic but decides to hold off on it for a little longer.
Circumstances are exacerbated furthermore when Jesus’s brother, Carlos (Josep Maria Riera) and his much younger girlfriend, Cristina (Claudia Riera) drop in for a visit to see the baby. Jesus is tightly pressed furthermore in keeping the hideous secret guarded. “The Coffee Table” mostly relies on the herculean efforts of David Pareja, who is tasked with summoning a great amount of nervous trepidation. His stress, driven to unimaginable levels, induces hallucinatory visions and imagined sounds.
While the actor is sincere, the film rests too heavily on him to prop up a whole series of insidiously escalating situations. Maria ends up getting the short shrift. There’s a stubborn feeling that creeps up on the viewer, indicating the film is too stretched and would have worked in its macabre, unsettling vein better as a short film. The screenplay doesn’t rise to the challenge of persuasively sustaining the dread and anxiety over the entire course of the film. In spite of such hurdles, “The Coffee Table” delivers on some of its promises by culminating in a truly bonkers, shockingly excessive, yet frightfully compelling climactic act.
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