The Room (2003)
Directed By: Tommy Wiseau
Starring: Tommy Wiseau, Juliette Danielle, and Greg Sestero.
Plot: Johnny is a prosperous banker who lives with his fiancee Lisa. He loves and cares for her, bringing her gifts and financially supporting her, but she somehow feels unsatisfied. So she decides to cheat on him with Mark (Johnny's best friend). But after overhearing one of Lisa's many confessions to her mother about the affair, Johnny decides to find out whom she is cheating. Through a series of abandoned subplots and non sequiturs, Lisa and Mark's affair becomes known by virtually everyone except Johnny. But can they keep it a secret for much longer before he finds out?
Good: Despite this movie's reputation, there are some positives. For example, some of the actors pull in good performances. Juliette Danielle as Lisa does a fine job at portraying the emotions of each scene. When she badmouths Johnny to Mark, it is clearly done in malice, but when when a scene requires her to portray sadness, the emotion feels genuine. Another stand out performance comes from Carolyn Minnott as Lisa's mother, Claudette. She has good chemistry with Danielle, and though these performances are far from Oscar worthy, but they're serviceable enough to rise above the poor writing. There are also some good shots of the San Francisco skyline and Golden Gate Park, which help the production seem larger than just one apartment.
Bad: Unfortunately, those performances don't even make a dent in the poor quality of the film. The rest of the acting is absolutely awful, with Wiseau as Johnny being the worst offender. His delivery ranges from too emotional, to not emotional enough, to the wrong emotion, leading to many scenes where he either comes off as creepy, high, or half asleep. In one scene, Mark tells Johnny a story about a girl who got beat up by one of the people she cheated on, and Johnny gives a creepy laugh (which wasn't in the script) and happily says that it's quite a story. The other cast members either overact or seem not to care. Greg Sestero as Mark always seems bored or tired with every scene he's in and Philip Haldiman as Denny (Johnny's younger friend) comes off as too needy. The writing is atrocious, forcing the characters to contradict themselves constantly. For example, when Peter (Johnny's psychologist/psychiatrist friend) for one moment says that Lisa is too kind to possibly be cheating, then a few minutes later, claims that she's a sociopath. Subplots appear out of nowhere and leave just as quickly. Some of the most egregious examples of this are Denny's drug problem, Claudette's breast cancer, and Mike and Michelle's (Johnny and Lisa's friends, respectively) relationship. The sex scenes also come almost out of the blue, and last for way too long. They service the plot in no way whatsoever, other than to give the film a "sexy edge". Johnny is a very flat and boring character. He's friends with everybody, has a very luxurious lifestyle, has little to no flaws, and everyone who doesn't like him or disagrees with him is shown as either evil or idiotic. He's the epitome of a Mary Sue. Lisa flip-flops between being a sympathetic character trying to find what right for her life, to being outright evil and malicious. Mark is an idiot who always seems shocked when Lisa wants to have sex with him. The other characters are even less interesting, and either serve the purpose of singing Johnny's praises (Claudette), scold Lisa (Michelle), or have no purpose whatsoever (Mike). Finally, the production design is just plain awful. Many of the sets look worse than that of a sitcom, with pictures of spoons scattered throughout, no kitchen, and a TV that sits on two columns. The green screen effects on the rooftop scenes are painfully obvious, and feel pointless, since they could have just filmed these scenes on a real rooftop.
Trivia:
- Instead of renting the film equipment, Wiseau took the much more expensive route and bought all the cameras.
- The billboard for the film would remain erected for five years after its release.
- The Room is called that because it was originally written as a stage play that would only take place in one room. When it was changed to a movie, the title stayed.
- Greg Sestero wrote a book about his experiences with Tommy Wiseau and The Room called The Disaster Artist.
Next week, we'll take a look at one of the most famous horror comedies, and possibly Edgar Wright's most famous movie, Shaun of the Dead.
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