If you can believe it, The Room's Director, Writer, Producer, and main star are all the same person: Tommy Wiseau. So when it comes to someone to blame for this film, it rests solely on this man; someone whose acting has been described as being like 'Borat doing an impression of Chris Walken playing a mental patient.' Harsh, but VERY fair.
With an independent injection of $5 million, the film was met with scolding disparagements, with the plot, characters, editing, direction, screenplay and in the particular, the acting, being called on. Wiseau has stated that the movie was intended to be a black comedy, and as such, the irregularities are intentional. But members of the cast and crew have debated this, saying it was supposed to be a romance. Whatever it was supposed to be, it failed. Big time.
The film takes places in San Francisco, where our main character Johnny (Wiseau) lives an idyllic life as a successful banker, engaged to a beautiful woman named Lisa (Juliette Danielle). Unfortunately, we discover that Lisa has grown tired of Johnny, labelling him as 'boring'. So in order to spice up her life, she begins an affair with Johnny's best friend Mark (Greg Sestero).
Believe it or not but the above paragraph pretty much sums up the entire plot. It's so basic and rudimentary you wouldn't believe that you could churn out so much protracted and superfluous nonsense from it. Plenty of things happen in the film of course, but one of the flaws that the film was called on by audiences was just how many utterly unnecessary scenes the film contains. When I first watched it I found myself asking, everytime a scene ended, "What was the point of that?" The answer, of course, is none.
The film is roughly an hour and a half long, and maybe only 20 minutes of that is dedicated to the central storyline, which is weak at best. The rest seems to be exaggerated filler. For example, in one of the many scenes where Lisa talks (pointlessly) with her mother, she is informed that her mother has been diagnosed with breast cancer. This notably serious piece of information is casually dismissed, and never brought up again. In another scene, Denny, a friend of Johnny and Lisa (yet another pointless addition) is confronted by a drug dealer he owes money too. Afterwards, this issue is never revisited, and no mention of Denny's drug taking occurs before or after this event.
But, as I mentioned earlier, it's not the plot that makes this movie so infamous. Oh no, that distinction belongs to the acting. Whoever told the people in this movie that they could act really need to reduce the dosage. Hammy and wooden don't even begin to describe it. The characters exude as much emotion as a Kevin Costner waxwork. Wiseau himself has become almost idolised for his appalling acting. Just type 'Oh hi Mark' into YouTube and you'll see exactly what I mean.
I could ramble on and on about how ways this movie falls flat on it's face. Acting, screenplay, editing, continuity, directing, the list just goes on. But unlike Troll 2, it does actually work on a certain level. The Room is undeniably fascinating. How is it possible that someone could make a film so lame, so utterly wretched, and yet so interesting and engaging? It's the kind of movie that could become the subject of a University Degree. It should be studied, analysed, dissected and microscopically examined. The Room is a bad film, but it gives you an experience you will never, ever forget.
Verdict: So Bad It's Good? Yes
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