Off the Cuff Reviews The Room (2003)

I knew I'd have to get around to this one eventually. Good God, I hoped I'd never have to. I actually feel like, with this movie, I've now reviewed at least one of every kind of movie there is. This was the last one. The 'so-bad-it's-good' movie. And that may be great when you want to mock something with a group of friends, but for a critical analysis, that doesn't really apply. I'm here to judge a movie on its merits. The Room (2003) has none. I'm not even sure what I can say about this movie that hasn't been said before, but I'll do my darndest. Starring Tommy Wiseau as Johnny, Greg Sestero as Mark, Juliette Danielle as Lisa, Philip Haldiman as Denny and Carolyn Minnott as Claudette.

The Room (2003)

Little inside knowledge for you, starting the review after the opening paragraph is always the hardest part of writing these. Once I've made a start on the actual review, it just flows, but I usually don't know where to begin beyond saying something like 'First of all' or 'Right off the bat'. It's something I've been trying to avoid recently, but I bring it up here because I really, really don't know where to begin with this one. All of the problems with the movie are apparent. You don't need me to tell you why this is generally considered one of the worst movies ever made. It's obvious. Meme status aside, there's really nothing of worth here. I can't add anything to the conversation. I can't consider a new perspective. I can't comment on how I did or didn't like this movie more than the general populas. It's just... The Room. It is its own beast, and it makes attempting any kind of critical review nie on impossible. The only way I can even begin is by clarifying that I'm not going to give this movie a pass because at times I was laughing at how bad it was. Those weren't joyous 'this is hilarious' laughs. They were 'I am in pain, please help' laughs. Your mileage may vary, but I can't watch a bad movie on my own just to laugh at it. I need to approach this like I would any other movie. The film wasn't made to be bad. It was made as an honest attempt by an independent filmmaker to produce a drama to the same degree as the Hollywood epics. You can already see the flaws here, but, like I said, I need to judge this how it wants to be judged. So, here we go.

Greg Sestero as Mark

I feel like I'm in the best position to comment on the quality of this script, being a writer myself. This script is awful. There was clearly only one draft. The plot, if you can call it a plot, is that a woman is fed up with her, honestly, perfect one-sided relationship and starts cheating on her fiance with his best friend. That's... that's the entire story, it takes over 90 minutes to tell. The pace is like pulling teeth, it's like when you're a kid and you're trying to go down a slide but it's dry plastic so you keep stopping halfway down and you pull yourself along one pathetic yank at a time. When I'm noticing the same exact shots being used for different scenes, or the passage of time making no sense, that's a problem. When I'm pulling apart the structure of the movie AS I'M WATCHING IT, that's something else. I feel like, at a certain point, you could completely rearrange the order of some of the scenes and it would make equal f***ing sense. Characters begin scenes having seemingly completely forgotten what happened prior. There are the obvious jokes I can make, about how much the characters love to play football, but I'll go a step further, and note how all the football scenes either last less than 30 seconds or end with someone unrealistically getting hurt for no reason, just to end the scene. Characters will arrive in a scene to do something important, then leave immediately with a half-assed 'I have to go' like the scriptwriter couldn't figure out how to get them to leave the scene in an effective way. As a writer myself, this script killed something inside me.

Philip Haldiman as Denny

I've mentioned the characters a couple of times now, and they're all just as inconsistent. No one is fleshed out, no one is 3, or even 2, dimensional. The only defining character trait from anyone is their connection to Johnny. Lisa is Johnny's disillusioned fiance, Mark is Johnny's best friend, Denny looks up to Johnny as a father figure, and basically every other character is a friend of Johnny's that doesn't want to see him get hurt. Well, I say that, but they're not very good friends, or people, for that matter. I can talk about how Lisa's a literal psychopath, or how back-and-forth Mark is where in one moment he'll be super nice and not want to see Johnny get hurt, but then in the same scene he'll do something really aggressive like attempt to KILL SOMEONE, WHAT THE F***! ... I'd rather focus on the other characters, who claim they're looking out for Johnny, but then say absolutely nothing to him when they learn about what Lisa's doing. I'm sorry, that's a bad friendship group there. I'd like to think that in my friendship group, if one of us was cheating on the other, we'd all tell the other what was going on, no matter the connection to either member of the group. That's just being a good person. Therefore, there is not a single good person in this movie. At that point, you just check out, and you just stop caring altogether.

Juliette Danielle as Lisa

But, okay, we all know where this review is going, let's talk about Tommy Wiseau. The main man himself, the mastermind behind this entire operation. In case it wasn't clear, this was a passion project for him. It's abundant in the way every character talks about his character, or how every shop owner seems to know who he is. He's painted as this 'do-no-wrong' saint, when he's just as inconsistent as anyone else in the movie. And, I don't want to be too hard on the guy, it's clear he can't act, it's clear he can't write, but it's clear this was a passion project and, good for him, follow your dreams and all that. But that's the thing: you can follow your dreams all you want, but you still need to have talent. Maybe there's a reason no one else would cast him in anything or take on his scripts and maybe there's a reason he needed to do all of this himself. It's like me, with how clearly physically unfit I am, demanding to compete in the Olympics. It's just not going to happen, and if it does, cool that I achieved my dream, but it's going to end badly for me, and I'm not going to make myself look good in the process. Work on your own scripts all you want, that's what I do, but you still need to edit them. You still need to accept that not everything you do is good. You need to have other people access your work and accept their feedback without dismissing it because 'it's your vision'. Not just assuming that anything you do will turn to gold without going through the really quite important vetting process that makes up about 90% of the production phase: I've seen a few theatre projects that have clearly gone through this kind of toxic production cycle (not naming names, of course) and it's abundantly clear when it happens. You're not going to make yourself look better just because you refused to accept outside criticism when they're just trying to make your work better for you. It's not a competition. You're going to look bad. You're going to get a bad reputation. You're going to make The Room.

Tommy Wiseau as Johnny

The Room (2003) is garbage. Utter, utter garbage. Does it make for an entertaining watch with friends? Maybe. Doesn't change the fact that it fails on just about every level. I went on a bit of a rant there at the end, and I apologise for that. But that's what this movie did to me. 0/10.