By RACHEL BOLTON
Staff Writer
PUBLISHED October 25, 2011
Rating-Revolting
Welcome to the ninth circle of movie hell. This is an Unholy Abomination of a film. The Room is the demented brainchild of Tommy Wiseau, who wrote, directed, produced, and starred in his movie. It is evident to any viewer that Wiseau was trying to create a realistic drama, but ended up with an eyeball-numbing, disastrous mess. Every aspect about this movie is horrible. Because it’s so awful The Room is strangely interesting to watch
The Room is about the down fall of a happy banker named Johnny, played by Wiseau. Mr. Wiseau has a “unique” appearance and voice. He has long, black, stringy hair and always looks like he is grimacing. He speaks in an indistinguishable accent that sounds like a weird combination of a drunk Frenchman and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Johnny lives in San Francisco. The movie reminds us constantly of this fact. It’s constantly padded by stock footage of the city in between scenes. Johnny has a girlfriend named Lisa, who he gives gifts too. The movie tries to portray him as a nice guy, however, it never shows us. It only has other characters tell us about his apparent virtues.
The movie begins with Johnny coming home to Lisa, who job has something to do with computers, but she never does anything. Johnny brings her a red dress, then their friend Denny comes over. Denny is the Jar Jar Binks of this movie. He’s annoying, awkward and won’t ever leave but the director loves him. Denny is sort of Johnny’s adoptive son, but the connection is never truly explained. Denny is a college student and loves Johnny and Lisa. When he comes over in the beginning, Johnny and Lisa suddenly decide to go upstairs and have sex. Wow, what a nice way to treat a guest. Denny doesn’t leave. He follows them and hops on their bed. When Johnny asks him why he is here he says that he likes to watch them. Creepy, and don’t worry it only gets worse from here.
Denny eventually leaves and Johnny and Lisa “make love” (If you can call it that). What follows is the world’s stupidest sex scene. It’s uncomfortable to watch and lasts an unnecessarily long time. A very long time. All the sex scenes in this movie are stupid and long, and there are three of them. And the “Best” part is that they are all done set to bad 80’s synthesizer love songs.
The next part of the movie focuses on Lisa. Her mother comes over and Lisa for no apparent reason tells her mom that she doesn’t want to marry Johnny anymore, because he’s “boring.” Her mom rebukes this idea and tells her daughter to stay with him. Lisa sounds like a whiney teenager and the disturbing fact is that the actress was 18 when this movie was filmed. After her mother leaves Lisa calls up Johnny’s best friend Mark and asks him to come over.
Mark is a good looking idiot who has no idea that Lisa is trying to seduce him. He does not understand what lit candles, champagne, and a sexy black dress mean. I don’t think Mark knows what’s going on until he and Lisa are having spiral staircase sex—which is another endless scene set to bad 80’s music. Afterwards Mark says that Johnny is his best friend and that their tryst will be their little secret.
This has all happened within the first fifteen minutes of the movie.
Not much happens for a long time. We are introduced to some of Johnny and Lisa other friend including a couple who sneak into their house to have sex. Then we meet Peter the psychologist. The actor apparently got so mad with this movie that he left halfway through filming and another character was created at the end and given his lines. We witness Tommy Wiseau’s version of male bonding, which is tossing a football around. It happens throughout the movie with no explanation. And talk about another random event. Denny gets attacked by a drug dealer. Johnny and Mark drag him away and they pull a gun off of Chris-R the dealer. This gun is important later, but I think Wiseau could have come up with a better way to present it.
Lisa’s plot to make Johnny suffer continues when she gets him drunk later that night. (what follows is another stupid sex scene, but you already knew that didn’t you!) The next day Lisa tells her mother again that she doesn’t love Johnny, and then lies to her and says that Johnny got drunk and hit her.
Johnny later finds out that she lied about this, and Wiseau gives the best line of the whole move. (Written Phonetically) “I deed naght hit her! It’s naght true! It’s Bowlschit! I deed naght hit her!… I deed NAAAGHT” and then a big mood whiplash “… Oh, hi Mark!” Just try saying that out loud.
He confronts Lisa about it later, Wiseau gives the other greatest line of the movie, “You’re TEEEARING me apparrrt LEESAH!” Lisa invites Mark over again for another seduction. Mark is as clueless as before and repeats all the lines from the first scene.
The movie concludes at Johnny’s birthday party. Lisa and Mark cause a scene and Mark and Johnny have a fight. After the party is over, Johnny overhears a phone call between Mark and Lisa and realizes what has been going on. Lisa yells at Johnny and tells him she’s leaving him. Johnny has one of the most spectacular hissy fits ever put to film. It’s almost hilarious to watch. He says “I am fed up with these WURLD!” and shoots himself with the gun he pulled off the drug dealer. Mark and Lisa rush in and cry over his body and the annoying Denny shows up too. The film ends Reservoir Dogs-style with the cops arriving off camera to survey the damage.
I am ashamed that I wasted an hour and a half of my life to watch this movie. The acting is bad beyond belief. The plot is dumb and it is filled with plot holes so big you could fall into them. Surprisingly the film has gained a cult status with midnight showings around the country. Tommy Wiseau is a good sport about his giant failure and has embraced his infamy. He claims that the movie was made to be a black comedy, although several cast members have countered saying that it was meant to be a drama.
The Room is like watching open heart surgery. It’s a bloody mess, and hard to watch, but you just can’t look away.
