Greetings,
Sometimes I get into a mess, and it's totally my own fault. A while back, I jokingly wrote a post on my personal Facebook page asking if I had to review the movie The Room in order to be considered a legit reviewer. I didn't expect any responses, since it was a rhetorical question, as well as, like I said, a joke. Well, I got responses, and people said yes. Yes, they wanted me to review this movie. I am shaking my head now, mostly at myself, because I am going to make an attempt at this. Just keep in mind that with an attempt rarely comes a promise of success. Now off we go.
I will assume that there are at least a few of you out there that have never seen The Room, maybe some of you have never even heard of it. So let me explain. The Room is a 2003 film that was directed by, written by, produced by and starring a guy named Tommy Wiseau, and Tommy Wiseau is something of an anomaly. I don't even know if I can explain him with the proper words. He's just some guy who is of questionable origin (seriously, no one can figure out what nationality he's supposed to be and the accent does not help), and he somehow managed to get enough money together to make this film. And it is famously terrible. However, it is widely considered also very entertaining...in a terrible way. I suppose that, in the pantheon of good bad movies, The Room ranks extremely high, even being referred to as 'the Citizen Kane of bad movies'. Hopefully, that will put things into perspective for you.
Now I have experienced a boatload of reviews of this movie, mostly in video form, which means they just show clips and make jokes about them. And that is really all you can do with The Room. Just mention something that happens, and then say something funny about it. Seriously, that is one of the reasons why I was hesitant to even do this, because it's hard finding any jokes that haven't been told. Then again, there is much to be mocked here. So, I guess I can give it a shot.
So The Room centers around a guy named Johnny, played by Tommy Wiseau, who lives in San Francisco with his fiance, Lisa. She starts to get bored with him and cheats on him with his best friend, Mark. And, yeah, that's about it for the main plot. I kid you not. When it comes to this story, which I assume was meant to be the foundation of the whole thing, nothing really happens other than that. It's just Lisa with Johnny, Lisa gets bored, Lisa with Mark, back to Johnny, back to Mark, and on we go. And speaking of going back and forth, there are so many completely gratuitous and way too long sex scenes here. Now, I know you guys know that I generally do not care for scenes like that in movies very much, but, with this, it goes far beyond just my opinion on the matter. The consensus with a lot of viewers about how long the scenes are seems to be that, if they were going to pay to use a song in the film for these certain scenes, they were going to use the whole thing. And they did. Anyway, back to the...whatever. As I recall, Johnny suspected Lisa of cheating and tried to catch her, but he was unaware that she was cheating with Mark. Actually, most of the time, Mark himself seems unaware of the affair as well, since every time she puts the moves on him, he acts like he just doesn't get what she's trying to do. To a point of downright hilarity. And that's it. For this part.
Rest assured, though, there is plenty going on in the outskirts of those three characters' lives. There are actually about 87 subplots happening, but each of them gets either a beginning, a middle OR an end. But no more than one of those things. And so many secondary characters. Oh, mercy. I mean, there's this weird, creepy kid always hanging around them named Denny, and I am not exaggerating on the 'creepy' here. He makes it clear, in fact, that he really likes being around Johnny and Lisa. Like, really. At one point, he says he's in love with Lisa, only to forget about it a minute later. Then, he's getting attacked by a drug dealer named Chris R. Really? Chris R.? I'll guess he took that on in second grade when they had to distinguish him from Chris H. and Chris M., but no one ever told him he could stop using the "R" once he got out of school. And then, there's Lisa's mother, who comes in to have a conversation with her about three or four times. And I mean they have the SAME conversation three or four times. It's almost unreal that they thought no one would notice that. And then, we have all these random people just showing up and disappearing for no other reason than to pad the movie. Most of the time, people will just come on screen and start talking about "important" things, and they had never been seen before. You spend a good portion of this movie looking at these "characters" and saying "WHO ARE YOU?". Not that it matters who they are, because they probably won't be back. I even heard that one actor just quit in the middle of filming, so his character just stopped being there. Oh, well. And all of that is what happens in between and around our plot of cheating and betrayal. Yeah, it's not as good as I made it sound.
And the last ten minutes or so of the film, I can't even tell you about it, because it is far too epic. It's just the whole experience in a nutshell, I suppose. Although, if you've ever wondered if it's possible for someone to overact and underact at the same time, this ending will take care of that for you.
Truth is, this is a difficult film to discuss in text form. It's easier for the people who can show clips. So I have no problem with saying that my review here is no competition to those of the Nostalgia Critic, Obscurus Lupa, the Bunny Perspective or the guys at Cinemasins. I just don't even know what to say about it that hasn't already been said better or that would do it any justice, so to speak. You just have to see it. Not to say that I am recommending it, exactly, though, I can admit that it is certainly ... something. And I guess if you're into severely bad yet somewhat entertaining films, this one would be on your to-do list. Just promise me to fast forward the ridiculousness of the sex stuff. Unless you find yourself at a midnight screening of the thing. Yes, it does have so big of a cult following that it gets midnight screenings. Wow.
Okay, I'm done, you guys. I did my best, and that's all I can give on this one. And to all the people who wanted me to review this? I have no words for you. Just...no...words.
Love and full moons,
Becky the Writer
