The Coffee Table (2022)

• Aka “La Mesita Del Comidor”
• Directed by Caye Casas
• Written by Cristina Borobia, Caye Casas
• Stars David Pareja, Estefania de los Santos, Josep Maria Riera
• Run Time: 1 Hour, 31 Minutes
• Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14dmDiYA8YM

Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone

There’s horror comedies and then there’s seriously dark horror comedies where the situation is so awful and the humor is so primal that you snicker and almost feel guilty for doing so. This was so much more than the trailer let on. Who knew that buying a piece of furniture could be so life changing? We were both pleasantly surprised by this one and thought it was terrific.

Spoilery Synopsis

A woman lays back and screams; she’s giving birth. Much later, with the baby in a stroller, she and her husband go out to buy a coffee table. The salesman makes a big deal out of it, saying “it will change your life for the better. It will fill your home with happiness.” Jesús wants to buy it, but Maria says it’s ugly. There’s a whole debate between them and the vendor, but in the end, Jesús wants it. She got the baby, the least she can do is let him have the table. Credits roll. 

Jesús lugs the big up the many flights of stairs to their apartment. The neighbor’s very young daughter, Ruth, has a crush on Jesus, but he’s not at all interested and just trying to stay out of trouble; she’s 13. She wants the two of them to run away together. 

Jesús and Maria argue about “Cayetano,” the baby’s name. Jesús thinks that’s a terrible name. There’s a screw missing from the table, so Jesús calls the store for another. The couple argues again, hilariously. She ends up calling his brother a pedo-vegan and then goes shopping. 

Maria leaves, the baby starts crying, and Jesús works to calm the baby, clearly devoted to the little one. That goes badly. Very badly. He falls through the supposedly unbreakable glass table top, which breaks, killing the baby. 

At the store, Maria brags about the baby to a friend. Meanwhile, Jesús looks at the broken glass and all the blood. After pulling glass shards from his hand, he changes the now-silent baby’s diaper. He quietly puts the baby to bed and then goes to the neighbor’s to borrow some cleaning supplies. He wants all of them. Young Ruth says she’s going to stop by later after she walks the dog so they can talk, implying she’s going to tell his wife about their imaginary relationship.

When he returns to the apartment, the salesman is there with a replacement screw. He has lots of advice on how to put that screw in, and Jesús just stands there smiling. The man does like to talk, and talk, and talk, and he wants to be friends. 

Jesús cleans up the mess as best he can, but that is a lot of blood. He gets a text from Maria that she’ll be home in about 30 minutes. 

She finally arrives and he explains that it was hard to put the baby to sleep but that he’s in his room now. He admits he broke the new table and cut his hand. She smiles and says, “That’s karma!” She laughs and rubs in how terrible that table was. She gets to work making lunch, laughing the whole time. 

She wonders what he did to break the glass. “I would have loved to see the moment it broke,” she chuckles. When she says she’s going to check on the baby, Jesús follows her, telling her to let the baby sleep. Maria hears something that sounds like dripping coming from the baby monitor. Yeah, the blood is leaking to the floor. 

Jesús’s brother, Carlos and young girlfriend, Cristina, come for lunch. They mention blood on the bottom of the chair, and we get a glimpse of something under there. Could it be the baby’s head? The visitors brought a gift and, of course, want to see the baby. 

The brother senses something is wrong, but assumes Jesús really has done something nasty with the 13-year-old upstairs. They all gush over the decorating and 80s vibe of the room. The baby must be sleeping in their room. Then it’s time for lunch, and they all talk about Carlos and Cristina being vegans now. All the food looks like blood to Jesús. Maria talks in great detail just how important having a son is and how much it means to her when the other couple mention they have a baby on the way. 

Jesús is less than enthusiastic about his new niece or nephew, which the others find rude. He starts talking about regretting buying the table, the biggest mistake of his life, and they are confused. He excuses himself.

Jesús records a suicide message in the bathroom, admitting everything and apologizing to his wife. Carlos overhears, and then he sees the baby; now he knows what happened. “What happened to the head?” “It’s under the armchair; I couldn’t pick it up.” 

Just as the two men are about to come out of the bedroom and admit everything, young Ruth from upstairs comes to the door. She talks to Maria and tells that Jesús kissed her in the lift. Ruth brings in her little dog, who goes straight to the chair of blood. 

Things get chaotic quickly with raised voices and barking dog. Everyone, Maria included, says Jesús needs to confess what he did. Then they all see the baby’s head. It gets real tense, real fast. This ends with Maria jumping off the sixth-floor balcony. 

The police arrive. The mother, father, and baby all died falling from the balcony, but the baby was clearly beheaded. Carlos is in shock, all he keeps repeating is “The coffee table…” 

Commentary

This honestly didn’t look like much from the trailer, but it’s darkly hilarious from the beginning to the end. The budget here was obviously very low, but they made good use of what they had with a really interesting situation. 

A couple of times, they hinted that they were going down the same path as “The Tell-Tale Heart,” but they never quite committed to that idea. 

The situation goes on and on, getting more and more uncomfortably intense– just how long can Jesus cover up what he did? 

This is surprisingly good!