(Photo Courtesy of Wiseau Films)Tommy Wiseau had a dream to bring his story, “The Room,” to the world. Starting out as a play that was adapted into a novel which couldn’t get published, Wiseau’s unintentionally hilarious drama tells the story of a successful man who is betrayed by his fiancé and best friend. Directed, produced, written by and starring Wiseau, “The Room” has become known as one of the worst movies ever made, but I’m kind of obsessed with it for that reason. There is no doubt this film deserves its cult following.
The entire film is filled with abominable writing and cinematography. I began laughing at the movie during the opening credits. City shots fade to black repeatedly as credits are shown. Halfway through, Wiseau decides that the credits will begin to appear during the green screen shots of San Francisco instead of on a black screen. This is the bad beginning to a film that only gets worse.
The next hour and a half is comprised of laughable dialogue, cutaways that make no sense at all, useless subplots and unbearably long sex scenes. Johnny (Wiseau) and his fiancée, Lisa (Juliette Danielle), share awkwardly timed conversations and then fall into bed together. All seems as if it’s going well until we learn that Lisa no longer loves Johnny and that she wants to sleep with his best friend Mark (Greg Sestero).
Of course, Johnny is left in the dark for a little while until he overhears Lisa tell her mother about the affair, not mentioning Mark. She tries to make Johnny look bad, saying that he hit her; his response: “I did not hit her. It’s not true. It’s bulls—t. I did not hit her. I did not.” Like I said, laughable dialogue.
Some of the best scenes — and by best, I mean worst — come from Johnny’s many conversations with his friends about misunderstanding women or sex. For example, after explaining the confidentiality of his banking job, he segues by asking Mark, “Anyway, how is your sex life?” He also tells Mark, “My Lisa’s great, when I can get it.” Real classy, Wiseau. The cliché-ridden screenplay doesn’t get much better than this.
Likewise, the cinematography is abhorrent. Cutaways show random city buildings before returning to the same setting as the last scene. Cameras focus on random objects and hold on images for much longer than necessary. Wiseau also had the ridiculous idea of filming with both 35mm film and high definition video, because he wanted to be the first person to film with both simultaneously. To accommodate this wish, the crew, which was fired twice during the making of the film, had to build custom frames so that both cameras could film side-by-side.
The production of the film was a train wreck. With a $6 million budget, nothing valuable was produced, except material for a lot of cheap laughs. Wiseau chose to spend money building sets when he could have shot on location and decided that all of his actors needed understudies.
“The Room” is, by far, the worst movie I’ve ever seen. Oddly enough, that makes it great. Few comedies have made me laugh harder, and fewer dramas have made me want to cry. In this case, though, I wanted to weep for all of filmkind. Thank you for this treasure, Mr. Wiseau. It won’t be soon forgotten.
Reach the reporter at wruof@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter at @willruof
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