code red/code green
by Douglas Messerli
Katie Parker and
Benjamin Stubbs (directors) A Table for Two / 2025 [11:30 minutes]
About five years ago Harry opened a small café called
A Table for Two, which he declares the best decision he ever made since he gets
a front-row seat in “watching love unfold, be it husband and wife, father and
son, and long-lost friends.” And he likes to think that he plays a part in
their love lives.
At this point in his story, a beautiful
young woman, Sophie (Becky Clifford-Ball) enters ordering up a special coffee,
who seems momentarily to excite our barista, Harry (Timmie Lee Murphy). But he
continues on, nonetheless, making it clear that his central tale is about
Jasper (Rich Dee), who enters the café almost everyday at “rush hour” and
orders a “flat light to go.”
But soon Jasper
begins coming into the café during his lunch break and telling the barista
about his favorite films and new art exhibitions at the busiest time of the
day.
But now he won’t leave. Jasper, he tells
us, is a hopeless romantic. But, turns out, he’s also romantically hopeless.
Harry now proceeds to recount the various men Harry meets at the café who turn
out to be terribly inappropriate for a possible date. One by one, we encounter,
first an absolutely boring man (Benjamin Stubbs), who discusses his monthly
business figures and the intricate details in different kinds of wood. The
second gentleman (Matt O’Connell) seems to be discussing the small size of his
penis, although assuring him it still works.
A man
(Ian Wilkinson) looking many years older than his Facebook picture, a man with
a frozen creepy smile (Damian Burdin), and a man (David Davenport) who for a
few seconds seems to be a rather normal bloke but quickly makes it apparent
that he is a Dungeon Master.
For each
of these disasters, Jasper has worked out a plan in which he walks up to Harry
whispering the words “Code Red,” at which point Harry proceed to deliver up a
black coffee which he accidentally spills upon the failed lover, apologizing
and promising to pay the bill and he ushers him out of the establishment. Presumably
Jasper recompenses him well for his troubles.
But given
the dreadful dates he’s found on Facebook and other apps, even our romantic
hero is now more than a little despondent about his hopes to find true love.
And
meanwhile Harry breaks up with is own girlfriend.
Asked
about how his dating his going, poor Jasper reports the latest red flag: “He
didn’t like coffee.”
“So what
about the other guy,” queries Harry, “the builder?”
“I think
he’s married.”
“What
makes you say that?”
Harry
shows him a cellphone picture of the groom, bride, and wedding cake. “Cause he’s
married.”
Jasper is
desperate, arguing that it’s time for him to forget and just get a cat.
But the
barista insists, to use an appropriate metaphor, that Harry “wake up and smell the
coffee. He’s a perfect catch. He’s funny, he’s intelligent, and he shows the
best cat videos even if the timing is completely appropriate, reminding him of
his noon-time revelations.
But poor
Jasper is now just bored, lonely, and horny.
“Well
look, chin up. I’m sure the right guy is just around the corner.”
Later
that day, Jasper rushes in having found the perfect guy on the internet: he’s 6’
2”, runs an art gallery, and his favorite film’s The Crab, which just
happens to be Jasper’s favorite.”
Moreover,
this new perfect man, Kyle, is meeting Jasper at the coffee house tomorrow.
Jasper shows
up in a nice dress shirt for the date. Sitting alone, he impatiently waits as
Harry pours out two “flat lights and places a rose between them.” In the very
next moment we see his hand switching the café opens sign to “Come Again. We
Are Closed.”
Jasper truly appreciates the thoughtful
gesture, but is terribly puzzled when Harry sits down across from him, saying “It’s
Jasper, right? Nice to meet you.”
“What are
you doing? Kyle’s going to be here at any moment,” Jasper responds.
But we
know what’s coming. Harry reveals that he’s Kyle, admitting that he hasn’t seen
The Crab, but if it means that much to him, he’ll watch it.
“Oh, I
get it, so this is an intervention.”
“It’s a
date, you mellon.”
There is
a long pause. “I thought you were straight.”
“So
did I. But then I woke up and smelled the coffee.”
Need we
say more. In the film, Harry goes on to explain how he gradually fell in love
with Jasper, realizing what he himself needed in a mate; for a moment it seems
as if, possibly, Jasper is ready to blame him for catfishing him.
“Code Red?”
asks Harry.
“No, not
this time.”
“So we’re
doing this thing then,” as the two toast coffee cups.
This
lovely British movie doesn’t list a writer, but I guess he might assume that
these quite skilled directors served in the role as well.
Los Angeles, November 28, 2025
Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (November
2025).
