"The Coffee Table" is a cruel, twisted fucker of a black comedy

The Coffee Table (2024)

Laughing through tragedy is said to be cathartic. That’s like the experience of watching "The Coffee Table," a cruel and twisted fucker of a film. It could be seen as either an asphalt-black comedy, a devastatingly bleak domestic tragedy, or both. Either way, it’s hard to shake, and all because of a tacky coffee table. 

Shrewish wife María (Estefanía de los Santos) and henpecked husband Jesús (David Pareja) seem to hate each other, but now they’re new parents with a newborn son. When the family of three goes out furniture shopping, Jesús succumbs to a sleazy salesman and buys a supposedly unbreakable glass coffee table adorned with two gold statues of nude women. The salesman says it will bring them happiness, but this gaudy piece of furniture does very much the opposite. 

If the film didn’t take its horrifically upsetting inciting incident seriously enough, "The Coffee Table" might have been reprehensible. At the same time, this isn’t trauma porn, either, because there is something queasily amusing (in the most breathtakingly bleakest way) about how many plates keep spinning. It’s not a side-splitting farce but more of a nerve-wracking endurance test, leaving you with a knot in your stomach. Read the full review at GuyAtTheMovies.com

Grade: B

Cinephobia released "The Coffee Table" (90 min.) on DVD and VOD on May 14, 2024.