Reviewed by GREG KING
Director: Tommy Wiseau
Stars: Tommy Wiseau, Juliette Danielle, Greg Sestero, Carolyn Minnott, Phillip Hardiman, Kyle Vogt, Greg Ellery.
Proudly wearing its reputation as “one of the worst films ever made” like a badge of honour, the extremely low budget self-financed and self-distributed film The Room slinks into a Melbourne cinema for a series of late night screenings. Over the seven years since its initial release, the film has gained cult status amongst those who treasure bad films. At screenings audiences familiar with the film shout out some of the key dialogue (“You’re tearing me apart!”), laugh at some of the shonky production values, continuity errors and out of focus camera work, and deride its casual misogyny and soft core porn scenes. And, most bizarrely of all, they throw plastic spoons at the screen – this is in response to the recurring motif of a plastic spoon that recurs throughout the film, usually in artwork.
The Room is something of a vanity project for its creator Tommy Wiseau, the strangely accented auteur who is credited as star, writer, producer and director of the film. The film’s almost incomprehensible plot seems like something out of one of those pot boiler daytime television soap operas. The film is set in San Francisco; we know this because of the endless number of establishing shots of familiar locations and images from the city.
The action mainly takes place in the apartment of the central character, the narcissistic banker Johnny (played by Wiseau), and mainly centres around the dysfunctional relationship between him and his girlfriend Lisa (played by Juliette Danielle). While Johnny is willing to do anything to show his love for her, she is having doubts about the relationship. Indeed, she is having an affair with Mark (Greg Sestero), his best friend. And there is some nonsense involving Denny (Phillip Hardiman), his young ward, who keeps wandering into their apartment. And Lisa’s mother (Carolyn Minnott) visits for chats, reveals she has breast cancer and utters lots of platitudes.
The dialogue is terribly cliched, and the performances of the no name cast are wooden and very one-dimensional. The characterisation is thinner than paper tissue. And, at one stage in proceedings, another actor mysteriously replaces Kyle Vogt, who plays Peter the psychologist. Apparently Vogt had a disagreement with Wiseau and was replaced.
The film itself is pretty dire; the best way to see it is probably at one of these midnight screenings with an enthusiastic audience who throw themselves into the film with abandon, making it something of an immersive experience. It certainly makes this amateurish film a little more enjoyable. The Room is one of those films that are so bad that they are execrable! It’s not even a guilty pleasure! Wiseau may well be the Ed Wood of our generation; although Wood’s low budget schlock features had a bit more substance, style and imagination than the dire The Room.
no stars!