The Room is a movie that was released in 2003 (though if you had to guess by watching you’d guess it was made in 1993). The movie stars Greg Sestero as Mark, Juliette Daniels as Lisa, and Tommy Wiseau as the lead character, Johnny. Oh, Wiseau also directed. Oh, he also produced it. Oh he also financed it. Oh, he also wrote the screenplay. Oh, he also transcribed the screenplay from a novel he wrote. The Room is Wiseau’s brain child. It’s nuts how passionate this guy was about this project, only for it to turn into what many people call, “The Citizen Kane of awful movies.” You’re probably thinking, “Why would I want to watch a movie that’s awful on purpose?” The answer to that is even though The Room is spectacularly bad, that it transcends its own genre and becomes a full on dark comedy. Its sincerity and its desire to take itself seriously end up what making it such a spectacularly funny movie! I am going to give you some reasons why this movie is one of the best unintentional comedies ever made!
1) Spoons!
When you make a movie, you need props in the background. Furniture, pictures, scenery in the windows, food in the fridge, just obvious stuff. Having these things brings sets to life, and makes them feel lived in, and less artificial. The Room does its best for an independent movie to fill in the scene…ok no it doesn’t. Wiseau went out and bought frames to place around the house…fantastic, good start. However, that’s where he stops. Unfortunately for him, picture frames often come with stock photos…and that’s where the spoons come in. There are so many picture frames with spoons that there’s a small tradition that has sprung up. The Room has attained cult status, and because of this there are small screenings of the movie in theaters across the nation. In these screenings wherever there is a random spoon, the movie goers throw spoons at the screen. It’s amazingly absurd. It’s things like this, that show that Wiseau had no idea what he was doing, And maybe you’re thinking that maybe he ran out of money, I mean he’s a small independent film maker, cut him some slack! I would, but The Room cost 6 million dollars…
2) To Film or not to Film, that is the question!
Wisseau has a passion for film, which is fantastic, but in my opinion he should have tried to do a short film or two before doing a motion picture, or at least taken a film class. I remember when I saw this movie for the first time about a year ago, I remember saying to my friends, “do you notice something with the camera?” They said yes, but none of us could put our finger on it. Shot to shot something was changing, but we couldn’t figure it out. As the movie went on, it bothered us so much that we eventually had to look it up. Wiseau apparently couldn’t figure out which film standard to use, 35 mm film, or high definition digital recording, so he did what any sane person with a crap ton money for a pet project would do…he did both! And it’s so painfully obvious when he switches too. It’s takes you out of the movie and really shows you how out of his depth this guy was. You can make a drinking game out of it. Every time it switches take a drink. Be warned you’ll probably die, It happens that much. Wiseau later claimed that he wanted to be the first director in history to use both formats at once. We’ll add his name to Guinness book of World Records.
3) NEXT!
How do you find the best actor for your movie? Why, you look at headshots and then pick people who have no acting experience, of course! That’s precisely what Wiseau did. And, when they didn’t work out, he’d fire them, but he’d still keep them in the movie. There’s a character, named Peter in the movie who is supposed to be Johnny and Mark’s neurotic friend. He comes in and tells Johnny something stupid that won’t be brought up again, and then he leaves…forever. It turns out that character was supposed to be integral the plot, but was let go. He subsequently was replaced by another character who the audience has never met, has no connection to, and we’re just expected to know who he is. Let me reiterate that. A guy shot half his scenes, and those scenes are left in the movie. That guy gets fired and replaced by another actor playing pretty much that character…and the audience just kind of has to piece that together on our own. That’s mind boggling.
There are other problems. The fact that Greg Sestero (Mark) was brought on last minute to play a lead role, when he was supposed to be a side character and work in production. The lead role of Lisa was supposed to be filled by a Latina close to Wiseau’s age (around 50 at the time), and was then given to a 25 year old. The fact that over half the staff was fired at one point and had to be replaced. Basically production was nightmare, and because of it we got comedy gold.
4) Breast cancer and other inconveniences
This movie has like 4 different subplots, and no main plot. There’s a subplot about how the lead actress’s mother has breast cancer. I love brie cheese and apples, it’s an amazing combination, and you all should try it.
You see how sudden and awkward those two disjointed thoughts are, that’s how all of the subplots are handled. They are brought up and subsequently dropped in the next scene, not giving any closure or even any further developments. We don’t get any other information regarding the mother’s cancer diagnosis. We don’t get any closure and it’s just never brought up again! The characters aren’t even interested in the diagnosis. They just move on like breast cancer isn’t a big deal. Another side character, Denny, has a drug problem and runs into trouble with his dealer. Again, nothing comes of it. Brought up and dropped. It’s unclear why it’s even brought up. It doesn’t add anything to the main plot. It just grinds the pacing to a halt. The only thing it adds, is golden unintentional comedy.
5) Hot Passionate awkwardness
I can’t beat around the bush with this. There’s a lot of sex scenes in this movie. There’s so many that Game of Thrones would blush. It’s ridiculous. In the first 30 minutes, there’s 3 sex scenes. 3 SEPARATE SEX SCENES. My god they’re long too! They’re each like 5 minutes long. It’s uncomfortable. Actually I take that back, I lied. There’s 2 sex scenes in the first 30 minutes. It’s just that they reused the same scene twice. They reused pretty much shot for shot the same five minute excruciatingly awkward sex scene that they showed less than 20 minutes ago! How do you do that? How can you be making a movie and say that yup, 3 sex scenes in the first act is exactly how I want to establish my story. We’ll throw in 3 more later too. Can’t have enough sex!
6) Haha, what a story Mark!
The writing the in The Room is laughably awkward. One of the most famous scenes in the movie is when Johnny and Mark are talking and Mark brings up a story about a woman being beaten be her boyfriend. Johnny’s response to the story is disturbingly casual as he laughs it off and says, “What a story, mark!” Clearly, the most appropriate response when hearing someone has gone through domestic abuse.
Earlier in that scene where Johnny is yelling because Lisa has falsely accused Johnny of hitting her. Johnny is visibly angry screaming and yelling. When he suddenly stops yelling when he sees Mark. Instantly he goes from angry to happy, gleefully exclaiming, “Oh hi, Mark!” There are other writing and strange acting choices, but I can’t spoil all of them.
7) Throwing the old pig skin around
I don’t know why but the main characters play catch football. Like a lot. Like more than twice. It serves no purpose. They just randomly throw a football around. They aren’t conversing, or having any exposition during the scene. They just throw a football around. One of the times they throw around a football they’re wearing tuxedos. It doesn’t make any sense, but it is funny.
8) It could have been even worse!
One of the subplots that was dropped was that Johnny was supposed to be revealed as a vampire. However, it was too expensive to shoot and thus was dropped. Let me clear this up. This romantic drama about people cheating on each other, and betrayal was supposed to have a subplot about the main character being a vampire… I don’t get it either. I’ve thought about it at least a dozen times, and I can’t imagine how they would have added the plot in. I guess we can count our blessings that we didn’t have to sit through that as well.
9) The little weird stuff
This is just weird extra stuff that stuck out to me while I was watching the movie. Denny is super creepy. He asks to kiss Lisa, and before that he asks to watch Johnny and Lisa have sex. Mark and Lisa have sex on a spiral staircase which just sticks out me to due to how uncomfortable it would be. All of Johnny’s lines are re-recorded after the fact, and half the time his mouth doesn’t match the words he’s speaking. The fact that random people use Johnny and Lisa’s apartment for sex and it’s never addressed. That Johnny and Lisa get drunk off a cocktail of whisky and wine poured together in a shot glass. The fact that every scene on a rooftop is poorly green screened.
There are your 9 reasons why The Room is the best worst movie ever made. If you think I am stupid for wasting my time watching a movie that is supposed to bad, then you’re welcome to that opinion. However, if you think that you might be interested the best worst movie ever made, then check it out!
Oh yeah, James Franco is making a movie about it...so another reason to watch it, I guess.
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