Guest Review: The Room (2003)

By ScottDS
Because no one asked, I decided to review The Room. This is a real movie, starring real people, that briefly played in a couple of real LA theaters where it was laughed off the screen. It shortly thereafter turned into a cult sensation, with midnight screenings, audience participation, and the requisite stage show, videogame adaptation, and Internet memes. This movie is so bad it’s good. Actually, it’s pretty bad but it’s fun to dissect. The acting is mostly amateurish, the script is horrible, the music is straight out of Skinemax, and there are several bizarre non sequiturs and continuity errors. Don’t look for substance here – you won't find it. Welcome to... The Room!

(I suggest you take advantage of the embedded YouTube links. My words can't do the film justice!)

The Room was written, produced… executive produced (?!)… and directed by Tommy Wiseau, whose nationality remains a mystery. Oh yeah, he also stars in the film. His accent was described by one critic as “Borat doing a Christopher Walken impression.” He’s not a good actor, he has an annoying laugh which pops up at inappropriate times, and he has a habit of greeting everyone the same way: “Oh, hi [name here].” He plays Johnny, a banker who’s engaged to Lisa (Juliette Danielle). We never see him at his job but we’re to assume he’s good at what he does, despite being passed over for a promotion. They appear to get along but Lisa admits to her doting mother Claudette (Carolyn Minnott) that she doesn’t love him anymore. Claudette reminds her that financial stability is important. Meanwhile, Lisa has an affair with Johnny’s best friend Mark (Greg Sestero), a likeable schlub who attempts to resist Lisa’s advances, yet gives in every time. By the end of the movie, Lisa has turned into a sociopath, telling everyone that Johnny hit her and claiming to be pregnant. Everything comes out in the open at Johnny’s birthday party. Later, Johnny wrecks his apartment Citizen Kane-style and kills himself. The end.

Thank God I got that out of the way! While the “plot” is rather conventional, there are several supporting characters and subplots that mostly go nowhere. Johnny and Lisa are friends with Denny (Philip Haldiman), a college student whom they treat like a son. While Wiseau claimed in an interview that Denny is mentally handicapped, there is no such hint in the film, which portrays Denny as a simple idiot. He’s oblivious when Johnny and Lisa tell him they’re going upstairs, presumably to have sex. He confesses to Johnny that he loves Lisa, but Johnny is unfazed and tells him that Lisa loves him, too, but as a friend. Denny has a run-in with a gun-toting drug dealer but we never find out what precipitated the conflict, the drug in question, or anything else. I assume Wiseau wanted to have a character in the film who was an innocent but Denny just comes across as a whiny pervert who’s unfamiliar with social norms, and whose hairstyle belongs in 1995.

We also meet Peter (Kyle Vogt), a psychologist friend of Johnny and Lisa’s. He makes no impression whatsoever and Vogt actually quit mid-production… which is why we’re introduced to a new friend (Steven, played by Greg Ellery) 20 minutes before the end of the movie. He makes as much of an impression as Vogt. Johnny and Lisa also have two other friends, Mike and Michelle (Mike Holmes and Robyn Paris). Since the door seems to be unlocked all the time, they sneak into Johnny’s apartment to have sex but are caught by Lisa and her mother. At one point Mike refers to his underwear as “me underwears.” Ya know, I don’t see that catching on. Oh, and there’s a scene where Johnny, Mark, Denny, and Peter play football… in an alley… dressed in tuxedoes. Denny mentions wedding photos but we never see this happen, and there’s never a wedding! Peter takes a dive and the scene is over as soon as it begins. But before this, in order to guilt trip Peter into playing, Johnny, Denny, and Mark do a weird chicken impression. To quote Arrested Development, “Has anyone in this family ever even seen a chicken?”

Speaking of bizarre dialogue, this film has it in spades, and Wiseau’s weird accent doesn’t help. He tells Lisa that he didn’t get his promotion: “They betrayed me, they didn’t keep their promise, they tricked me, and I don’t care anymore.” It’s like an elementary school student who has to write a report that’s a certain number of pages long so he uses filler to bump up the word count. When Denny tells Lisa that he owes the drug dealer some money, Lisa asks, “What kind of money?!” Uh, the green kind? When we first meet Peter, Johnny asks him about Lisa: “But you’re a psychologist. Do you have some advice?” And later in the scene, he yells, “Peter, you always play psychologist with us!” Huh? Lisa and Claudette have the same conversation about Johnny three or four times. “I don’t love him anymore.” “Why not?” “I don’t love Johnny!” “Can you tell me why?” and so on. At one point, Johnny is talking to Mark about work and suddenly shifts gears and asks, “So how’s your sex life?” Hell, Claudette says she has breast cancer and it’s never mentioned again!

The film itself definitely looks like a low-budget affair. Legend has it Wiseau raised the money by importing leather jackets from overseas. (I’m not joking.) Since he was confused about the technical details, he shot the film in both 35mm and digital, which raises the question, “With two camera images, could we get a 3-D version?” The film was shot in LA but takes place in San Francisco. There are some nice 2nd unit shots of the city, though some look like outtakes from Full House. However, the rooftop scenes look terrible, with some of the worst greenscreen I’ve ever seen (and, oddly, no wind). The main set is Johnny’s apartment, which looks like something we might’ve built for a student film. One piece of set dressing sticks out: next to the couch, there’s a table, and on the table are framed photos of spoons. Yes, spoons. At midnight screenings, audience members throw spoons at the screen!

There are three sex scenes in the first 30 minutes, though I’m pretty sure the third scene just uses alternate angles from the first one. The music is straight out of softcore, the scenes take forever, and, while the sex is obviously simulated, it definitely doesn’t look right. To put it mildly, there’s a serious alignment problem! To top it all off, we get to see Wiseau’s ass, which belongs on Easter Island. During the aforementioned tuxedo scene, Mark shows up, now clean-shaven. The camera pushes in on him and we get a whimsical music cue but the significance of this is never explained. At one point, Johnny buys flowers for Lisa but the scene is ridiculously rushed and the dialogue makes no sense at all. The woman behind the counter says she doesn’t recognize Johnny at first, and then says he’s her favorite customer after he's already halfway to the door. It’s like they cut out every other line! And remember the annoying laugh I mentioned? Mark tells Johnny about a woman he knew who was beaten and ended up in the hospital. Johnny’s reaction? He laughs!

I can go on but I think I’m going to stop right here. I apologize if you were looking for a serious analysis. I read about this movie a few years ago but I only recently became part of the cult, so to speak. There are plenty of bad movies that are completely forgettable and not worth watching, which kinda makes me appreciate this one. It takes a special kind of alchemy to make a bad movie that people actually want to see. The film is currently playing the midnight movie circuit and I’d love to go one day. It’s not some ironic hipster thing either. I imagine it’s just a fun communal experience (with spoons!). From what I understand, Wiseau seems to be enjoying his newfound fame (such as it is) and Greg Sestero (Mark) is even writing a book about the making of the movie. (To be fair, the actors seem like a likable bunch and most of them are willing to talk about the experience.) Now… who’s up for a sequel?

“You don't understand anything, man. Leave your stupid comments in your pocket!”

To see The Nostaliga Critic’s (NSFW) review, click here.

To hear excerpts from the Rifftrax commentary, click here.