by Douglas Messerli
Stewart Wade (screenwriter and director) Coffee Date / 2001 [17
minutes]
With his brother Barry’s (J. D. Glickman) help, Todd a frustrated and
fairly lonely divorced man, makes a date with Kelly to meet up at a local
coffee house. Barry is camping on Todd’s couch, and it’s clear that although
the two brothers love one another, in his slovenly behavior and his refusal to
even look for a job, he’s beginning to somewhat irritate Todd.
In any event, tired of
one-night stands, Todd is looking forward to meeting up with a girl who states
on her internet site that she’s interested in a long-term relationship.
When he arrives at the café,
however, Todd is immediately a bit dismayed. The coffee house seems to be overrun
by gay men and lesbians, nearly every table taken. At the center of the room a
single gay man (Peter Bedard) has captured a full table, and when Todd arrives,
he stands up as in anticipation that he may be his date. Rudely, Todd pushes
him away, soon after taking over the just-vacated table.
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The gay man immediately
shoots back: “What, the trouble with my being gay or Jewish or a gay Jew?” Todd
apologizes, but in those few moments realizes just what a jerk he has been.
Todd suggests that they
both share the table for now, giving it up to one whose date shows up first. The
two actually begin talking, particularly after the gay man argues that Todd,
given his presumptions about what gay people are about, has obviously not spent
very much time around gay men.
When an attractive woman
enters, Todd is convinced that she is his date, while the gay boy comically
asks, “You’re going with a lesbian?” Asked how he might know, the gay man predictably
acknowledges “gaydar,” for which Todd mocks. But when he attempts to make
contact with the woman, she is immediately greeted and kissed by another woman.
Todd sheepishly returns to the shared table.
Before they know it, they’ve
begun talking about films, the gay boy surprised that such a straight boy might
be interested in cinema, and both admiring the films of Milos Forman, although
Todd, strangely enough is more taken with the musically-oriented Amadeus
(in which Mozart is almost played as gay) while the gay man is more interested
in hardier fare such as One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and The
People vs. Larry Flynt.
Asking about his marital
status, the gay boy discovers that, like himself, Todd has been married—the gay
man having been in a long-term relationship—whose breaking-up patterns followed
those of his new friend’s: a moody distancing from others followed by a “slutty”
period of picking someone up nearly every night. And both agree that they’re
now seeking serious relationships. Todd goes so far to observe that, in fact,
the gay man is, as he himself advertised, “good-looking,” while the gay boy
takes back his comment that Todd isn’t his type. And soon they both begin to
realize that they are, indeed, one another’s dates, particularly when the gay
man reveals that his name is Kelly. The brother has obviously attempted to play
a mean trick on Todd.
Yet, neither hurry off,
but enjoying each other’s company, share a coffee, with Todd inviting Kelly for
a showing of some Bergman films at a local revival venue.
Todd arrives home late,
Barry sitting up rather gleefully to discover his brother’s response to his deceitful
little prank. But Todd enters with Kelly in tow, holding him by the hand as he
leads him in, briefly introducing him to his brother before he pulls him into
his bedroom.
The two giggle in delight
as Barry sits up erect in his seat trying to take in the implications of what
he has just witnessed: his straight brother having evidently suddenly gone gay.
The work ends, oddly, with the viewer wondering how they will retract
themselves from the joke or will, just perhaps, Kelly stay the whole night?
Although this short work
reads more like a sit-com episode than a true cinematic comedy, it nonetheless
exudes some amount of charm and seriously deals with both homosexual and
heterosexual presumptions about each other’s sexual behavior. My immediate
reaction was that if it had actually a sit-com, it might have been truly
fascinating if the two actually decided to explore a gay relationship or just a
deep friendship that perhaps didn’t even involve sexuality.
Soon after, I discovered
that the director clearly also saw its further possibilities, transforming it
into a full feature film five years later, a movie which I’ll review at another
“coffee date.”
Los Angeles, April 26, 2024
Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (April 2024).
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