Tommy Wiseau. It's not a name you're likely familiar with. And yet he may be the most brilliant man in Hollywood. He may also be the worst actor/director/writer this side of the folks who brought you Date Movie.
To explain what The Room is, is like trying to explain the vast scientific workings of the Universe to a 3 year old. It can't be done. Is it a comedy? Is it a drama? Is it real? Is it a work? I don't know. And I don't really want to know. Much like the Universe, I just want to bathe in it's existence and let it envelop me.
Two things are certain. It's a movie, and it's about 90 minutes long. After that, all bets are off.
The body of my review shall start by simply stating that The Room, as it stands, is a horrible movie. Maybe the worst movie ever made. But of all the low rent, atrocious, disturbingly detached from reality movies I've seen (and I've seen most of them), The Room stands head and shoulders above all of those in the glory of it's wretchedness.
It's so preposterously awful that many speculate that it had to be intended to be such. The very idea that a human being capable of making a movie, which while not rocket surgery, surely takes some ability and humanesque qualities to achieve, could produce something so egregiously bad, is a little hard to believe. The fact of the matter is that the laughs, when you think about them, play perfectly as jokes. They are constructed perfectly for derision and play sweetly into the hands of absurdity. On the other hand the dude could just be mildly retarded.
I'll tell you a scant few things about the film because if you're going to see it, it's best to know as little as possible going in. Not about the story, but about the flaws. The story itself is rather simple. It's a love triangle. Or maybe a love quadruple. Or possibly a love Octagon. The fact of the matter is that everyone loves Lisa.
The entire movie is pretty much played out in a single room, or an a roof with a green screened background. There are softcore love scenes that play out as if a Hungarian watched Cinemax, thought it was the most romantic thing he ever saw and tried to recreate it. There are non stop laughs. Onscreen. Everybody laughs. At everything. Things that one would assume are integral to the story are brought up and then never mentioned again. Emotions are on full display. Love, happiness, hate, admiration and angst are prevalent, often by the same character, in the same scene, regarding the same target. It almost never makes sense. Tuxedos are worn. Pictures of silverware are on display.
In the end what it's about doesn't matter nearly as much as how it's what it's about, which I believe is what Roger Ebert has said is the entire point of making a movie. And that adage never rings any truer than with The Room. No movie has EVER been how what it's about, than what it's about, than this film. Whether this film was made this badly on purpose or not, as it exists in the 90 minutes you spend watching it it, is a most glorious experience. And the aftermath will continue to keep you thinking, even if you don't want to.
I watched The Room with a friend who had much consternation about watching what I described as "the best, worst movie ever". I've seen bad movies with her, I've heard her talk of bad movies before, she doesn't labor on them. But days after watching this movie which she insists was awful and left her with no residual feelings, she will still randomly ask me what the Tuxedos were for. She blurts out lines from the film. I do not think this will change with time. Unfortunately for her I believe that this experience is now engrained in her head forever, like a random groping on a train or a spider found crawling on her leg. To me the experience more closely resembles the warm smell of an apple orchard on an Autumn eve. But the point is the same, to watch The Room is to forever experience The Room.
Before I had watched The Room i knew a little about it by searching the web and watching some videos on YouTube. I believe I first heard about it reading a Bill Simmons column where he mentioned it as the best worst movie ever. I didn't delve too deep though, as I did not want too much knowledge going in for fear that it would ruin it for me, which is I why I've tried not to reveal all that much about the contents of movie here. But after you watch The Room, you owe it to yourself to find out more about Mr. Tommy Wiseau and the making of The Room. I half expect that one day he'll reveal that it's all been an act, only because I truly want the man to get the validation he deserves. Intentional or not, the end result of The Room is pure joy. And it doesn't matter how it got there.
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