Coffee is a veritable โthingโ now. More than just a prop used to ridicule the younger generation, itโs also something that gets bandied about to sell deodorant or toothpaste or insurance or whatever. But now coffee is getting the Hollywood treatment. According to the Hollywood Reporter, the new movie Coffee is like Alejandro Gonzalez Inarrituโs Oscar-winning Babel, but withโฆ well, you know.
Premiered at last weekโs Beijing International Film Festival, Coffee is the sixth feature film from Italian-born director Cristiano Bortone and is a โpanoramic snapshot of a globalized world in the grip of cultural and financial turbulence.โ The movie follows three stories from different countries that โnever formally intersect, but they mirror each other in mood, motif and message.โ And are about coffee in some form.
One plot involves an Italian โninja-level coffee expertโ who has to take a โminimum-wage warehouse job, where a motley gang of co-workers tap his inside knowledge to mount a heistโ of kopi luwak. The story is ludicrous. I mean, there are actual coffee heists that could be pulled from that would be far more compellingโand not nearly as side-eye inducing–than a super coffee dude being coerced into stealing poop coffee.
But as the plots move away from coffee as their center, they seem far more interesting (at least to a coffee bro who hasnโt seen the movie). In Belgium, an Arab storekeeperโs search a โbeloved antique coffee potโ that was stolen leads him โa troubled young manโ and his โvirulently racist father.โ And in the Chinese story line, a coffee corporationโs โhandsome hotshot executiveโ is dispatched to a rural factory, where he struggles with the morality of illegal and dangerous production methods and meets a lovely young artist/eco-coffee farmer.
The Hollywood Reporter describes Coffee as both โheavy-handedโ and โa little too fond of fortune-cookie philosophyโ but also โa technically polished and good-looking productionโ featuring โsolid performances across the board plus some well-staged, pacy thriller elements in its final act,โ which maybe sounds a little bit like a few coffee documentaries?
Honestly, it looksย good enough for me to spend the 100 minutes needed to watch it, should I ever find a way of getting my hands on a copy. Be on the lookout for Eric J. Grimmโs official review. Eventually.
Zac Cadwaladerย is the news editor at Sprudge Media Network.
*all media via Cineuropa.org