‘Drip Like Coffee’ At BFI Flare 2025: Brimming With Potential, Drained Of Accomplishments

Photo by Millie Turner, image courtesy of Getty / BFI Flare: LGBTQIA+ Film Festival

Imagine entering a room filled to the brim with queer womenx who love queer womenx, all sat together to watch a film about Black Brooklyn lesbians(-ish) falling in love over coffee. Comforting, right? A room full of possibility and anticipation that is so unbelievably gay, it makes Queer Eye feel inadequate. Yet, one can only feel slightly disappointed leaving this room after having watched Drip Like Coffee. 

Directed by Anaiis Cisco, Drip Like Coffee is full of potential and drive. It is insistent on showing the messiness of queerness, womanhood, and perhaps even of being a Brooklyner (as a non-New Yorker I cannot attest, but the vibe is present) in the current day. The two main characters, Kali (Iman Artwell-Freeman) and Mel (Kashanie Lagrotta-Butler), are instantly drawn to one another, with longing glances and immediate sensuality in their physical proximity. However, we already know Kali has a deadbeat boyfriend, and slowly discover that Mel has a partner too, one who is open to an ‘open’ relationship (at least initially). Conflict arises when Kali and Mel grow closer to each other and distanced from their(significantly male) partners, with instances of both casual homophobia and insufficient communication. Anyone in the room watching wants to root for these two women, believes in their connection, and wants them to want each other endlessly. 

Unfortunately, for a film filled with brilliant and fresh ideas, its execution leaves so much wanting. At first, Cisco’s story appeals to the messiest of queers, allowing women of colour on the path to self-discovery the chance to make mistakes. However, as the film progresses, each of these mistakes- from miscommunication with their partners to regrettably unlocked doors and subsequent paranoia of being caught- becomes more tedious than relatable. Instead of gleefully shouting “yes!” at the screen, one finds oneself sighing in frustration. This is in part due to the rigidity and unnaturalness of the dialogue. Once again, Cisco dangles in front of us the chance to see conversation as it exists in reality but then snatches it away in the forcefulness of the characters’ lingo. Strained and lacking in any real hooks, each of the conversations between the characters feels too well thought out. Rewriting is an important part of writing anything, films included. Perhaps the dialogues in Drip Like Coffee could have then been rewritten to sound more natural and free-flowing. 

One may turn then to the performances of the actors to make up for the insufficient writing. However, this too may be a wrong turn, as both Artwell-Freeman and Lagrotta-Butler offer performances that do not elevate the script. Issues similar to the dialogues arise, with a certain reservedness and forcefulness shadowing their characters. Both are seemingly lacking in a certain vulnerability, which manages to peak out at certain instances of candidness between the two women but goes rushing back in in moments of high emotionality. The same can be said of the other actors such as Ralphy Lopez as Lee, Kali’s boyfriend. Lee’s shock when he discovers Kali and Mel kissing is valid, however, his upcoming outrage is unconvincing and mistimed. Too fast in both content and delivery, one may be inclined to overlook the casual homophobia and misogyny in his outburst, but since the film does so itself by not addressing the issues adequately, we are inclined to be dissatisfied with both Cisco’s writing and Lopez’s performance. Moreover, Cisco falls here, and elsewhere, into the trap of centering men in explorations of queer women’s desire. By having their male partners be the focal conflict in Kali and Mel’s relationship, Cisco does not allow for a more nuanced perspective of WLW queerness that often has little to do with men, despite the journeys of self-discovery the women go on. 

At this point, anyone watching the film tries to grasp any elements or moments that make the film a success. And they would find this in the character of Bev, played hilariously by Brittney Jenkins. Injecting infectious laughter and a comedic genius into any scene they are in, Bev provides the massive frustration relief this film needs more of. Unserious, brutally honest, and instinctively unchill, Jenkins’s Bev acts as the buffer and matchmaker between Kali and Mel, both their fiercest supporter and much-needed reality check. With strong hints to their queerness, Bev’s character is evidently the most realistic in the film’s world, using physical and situational comedy to highlight some of Kali and Mel’s idiosyncrasies. It is unfortunate, then, that they are relegated to a side character with very limited screen time.

Bev’s pointedness at the absurdities of Kali and Mel’s relationship may incline audiences to believe the dialogue, writing, and characterisation are ironic. I thought so as well, willing to give the film the full benefit of the doubt and assign its miscalculations to calculated irony and covert humour. However, it is difficult to believe such a reading when the film persistently offers no more instances of irony, sincere to its core. Therefore, if I can give this film any benefit, it would be in its intention and commitment to the inclusion of frequently unseen narratives. How these narratives are portrayed, though, leaves much wanting. All this to say, I look forward to what Cisco brings next, and hopefully, it is as conceptually strong as Drip Like Coffee, simply executed better.  

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Edited by Humaira Valera, Co-film & TV editor