Coffee Date

DavyG

Business Member
indieBIZ
Director:
Stewart Wade
Studio/Production Company:
Coffee Date Productions, LLC
Genre:
Comedy
Sub-Genre:
Gay
Length:
Feature

Website:
http://www.coffeedatethemovie.com

Score:
4.5/5

Employing a fresh take on a familiar plot device, Stewart Wade’s “Coffee Date” is a marvel, pure and simple without being hokey or simplistic. The film is wildly accessible and appealing while also being original and unabashedly intelligent. So many positive qualities should never be mutually exclusive but what makes “Coffee Date” such a winner is the fact that so few other films actually manage to be so consistently and thoroughly enjoyable.

As with a good cup of joe, where the experience begins even before the first sip, with the aroma ”Coffee Date” gets off to a fast start, wasting no time in thrusting the audience into the scenario. When Todd (impressive newcomer Jonathan Bray), an affable but ever-so-bland everyman is set up on a blind date by his snarky brother Barry (Jonathan Silverman), he imagines, of course, that it could be the start of something big and exciting for him. What lays ahead winds up being far more unexpected than anything he could have dreamed.

Todd enters what is clearly a queer-centric coffee-house looking for his date and quickly winds up in an awkward altercation of miscommunication. Not one to make waves or ruffles feathers, Todd successfully smoothes out the situation and actually finds himself conversing, uncomfortably at first, with a young gay man, Kelly (a wildly appealing Wilson Cruz). After all the inevitable gay vs. straight stereotypes and misconceptions are comically analyzed, their conversation soon turns to movies and the two quickly bond over their common interest. Next they reveal that they have both come to the shop to meet a blind date and Todd soon realizes that Kelly, the woman he was supposed to meet, is actually Kelly, the man he is talking to and that he’s been the victim of a wacky practical joke courtesy of Barry.

Not wanting to be had, Todd enlists Kelly in a plot to make Barry believe that he is actually gay now and the scheme gets wildly out of hand as everyone from his mother (veteran Sally Kirkland, who also executive produced the film) to his co-workers (including a great performance from Deborah Gibson) now think that he is gay and starts to treat him with a variety of responses, positive and negative, appropriate to the situation.

“Coffee Date” has many moments of genuine hilarity and the cast as well as the production is first rate. The most remarkable element of the film, however, is that its overall tone manages to seamlessly combine wackiness and sensitivity. Characters are all richly realized and fully dimensional and the issues introduced in the film, while handled comically for the most part, are not at all trivialized or dumbed down. Finally “Coffee Date” deftly avoids the traps that many, many gay oriented films fall into, emphasizing the gay element over the narrative element, short-changing story in favor of “spectacle.”
“Coffee Date” is a must-see!
 
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