“I am so happy I have you as my best friend, and I love Lisa so much.” —Johnny
Today’s quick review: The Room. Johnny (Tommy Wiseau) has it all: a steady job, a San Francisco apartment, and a gorgeous fiance. But when Lisa (Juliette Danielle) decides she is bored of Johnny, his life starts to unravel. She cheats on Johnny with his best friend Mark (Greg Sestero), growing more and more brazen in her attempts to escape her dying relationship, and Johnny gets sucked into a whirlpool of lies and betrayal tha threatens to tear him apart.
The Room is an independent drama written and directed by Tommy Wiseau. The tale of the deterioration of one man’s relationship, The Room is plagued by bad writing, worse acting, and low production values. Although it bills itself as a black comedy, there is no sign of comedy in the actual movie. The only humor comes from the movie itself, as its poor quality makes it a fairly entertaining watch.
Johnny, Lisa, and the rest are, bluntly put, bad characters. Tommy Wiseau’s noticeable accent and hasty delivery make him a distraction whenever he comes onscreen, while Juliette Danielle plays a remarkably unsubtle Lisa. The characters in general have a tendency to say what they are thinking rather than showing it, in particular Claudette (Carolyn Minnot), Lisa’s mother and perpetual confidante.
The basic machinery of storytelling malfunctions in The Room. The story is not bad in concept, but lacking in execution, with a decent overall arc interspersed with unnecessary scenes and very few plot twists of consequence. The cast, the passage of time, and how much characters know or suspect are all difficult to track, while the unintentionally comical dialogue keeps the movie from building up any pathos.
Apart from its obvious flaws, The Room suffers from subtle mistakes that would be hard for an aspiring writer-director to catch. These range from camera shots that linger a bit too long to excessive use of the characters’ names to lines of dialogue that would look fine on paper but come across as awkward when read aloud. No one mistake is all that glaring or unreasonable, but taken together they keep the movie from achieving what little potential it has.
The Room also has its share of overtly bad choices. Johnny laughs incessantly in a failed attempt to make him seem friendly. Characters have a tendency to say what they need to say, then end the conversation abruptly, even when it makes no sense for them to do so. The decision to have four sex scenes in the first half-hour of the film is questionable at best, while the writing sprouts unnecessary details like weeds.
Oddly enough, given the film’s reputation, The Room is not a total trainwreck. The movie has glimmers of artistic vision and, in some places, even competence. The story is mostly coherent and could have been moving in the hands of the right team. The presentation clearly had thought put into it, and if it fell short of its potential, it at least knew where it was aiming.
Most importantly, The Room flows in a way that other bad movies do not, making it a much easier watch than the usual drack at the bottom of the barrel. Give it a try if you are looking for a hilariously bad movie with highly quotable dialogue, particularly if you have some friends to share it with. The Room does not hit its target, but it hits a target, and that counts for something.
3.5 out of 10 on IMDB. I give it a 3.0 for poor quality all around, but a 7.0 to 7.5 for being a surprisingly easy, enjoyable watch for all the wrong reasons.