#tommy wiseau's the room

[izmooi]

izi’s Random Movie Review

The Room, 2003 dir. Tommy Wiseau

This post contains spoilers.

"This movie, while not the supposed intention of the writing (which seems like a first draft that went all the way through) is about a woman, Lisa, going through a downward emotional spiral."

For this new year, one of my resolutions is to watch more movies. The best way to do this and stay engaged is to share my movie reviews on my tumblr. It's not a new concept and by no means uniquely exciting, but this is for me and to have fun sooo I do what I want! What better way to start the new year, and to start a weekly movie review challenge than to start with the critically acclaimed, best bad movie nearly ever recorded and recognized by the mass public, The Room by Tommy Wiseau. I was first introduced to this movie during a storyboarding course at school a few years ago. Since then, I have read parts of the script and heard remarks, niche inside jokes, and references about the film, yet I had never seen any of it until now.

Overall, I found myself interested in the characters and their dynamics, despite being frustrating to watch and confusing to piece together. Something I like about movies is when there are pre-established relationships between characters, and that is prevalent in this film. Despite that, issues lie with how these pre-determined dynamics give characters a lack of motivation. Other issues, of course, lie in the movie's infamously catastrophic audio and dubbing issues, and the sometimes shaky or unskilled camera movements and cuts that don't always make sense.

This movie, while not the supposed intention of the writing (which seems like a first draft that went all the way through) is about a woman, Lisa, going through a downward emotional spiral. This is seemingly caused by undisclosed past experiences and her outbursts in taking it out on others, attempting to regain control over a life she never felt like she had control over in the first place. This I've pieced together due to her mother's manipulation, her dissatisfaction with her relationship, and her overall loss of interest in the things she used to love. Johnny, her fiance (played by Wiseau), is a sensitive guy who is trying to do the best for his future wife, but his efforts aren't what she wants. Her love for him is gone, and she's cheating on him with his best friend, Mark. Mark wants his best friend to be happy but keeps giving in to the temptation of Lisa.

We see Lisa change a lot throughout the film, turning from a cheeky person to one of more melancholy as the chapters of this story and her downward demeanor continue. Mark changes through the film too, at a point realizing he doesn't love Lisa and favors his friendship with Johnny over her. He shaves his beard and gets a new clean-shaven look. Johnny more-or-less stays the same throughout the film, which leads him to be in his own head and causes him to push everyone away from him at the end, leading to the very surprising climactic end of the film.

I think this movie has a deep takeaway on male fragility and an interpretation of the relationship between men (a lot of these scenes are summarized by simply "football"). Johnny and Mark have an intimate relationship as two men, which isn't romantic but is one of deep connection. Lisa plays into the fragility of these two men and comes between them to pit them against each other simply because she knows she can. She's doing this because she wants to do whatever she wants (but, due to the lack of motivation why, it pushes further into my interpretation of an emotional spiral with no direct root cause). She manipulates the two men into tarnishing their relationship, but in the end, Mark stays true to Johnny through it all, and their bond isn't broken by Lisa's ploy.

There's a lot more I could talk about this movie, from the beautiful San Fransisco scenery (one shot, in particular, being reused many a time but with the panning direction and focal point switched each time on the same piece of footage), the relationship Johnny has with his adoptive son Danny, and even more so in the relationship Lisa has with her mother. The film is a mess but that makes it so great. There's so much more about this film than I thought I would take away. Each time I watch this film, there will be something new for me to take away from it. That's what makes a cult classic, in my opinion; Repeated viewing, and the interest of a niche audience.

4/10

Check out this review and more on my Letterboxd

[junkfoodcinemas]

THE ROOM (2003) dir. Tommy Wiseau

[towritecomicsonherarms]

HA!

[viggos-mortensen]

The Room (2003) // Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)

[redlettermediathings]

[weirderscience]

> people say a piece of media -isnt- influenced heavily by the author's personal life and biases > reads about the life and biases of the author to confirm or deny this > influence

[ink-the-artist]

Dude some of those popular so-bad-its-good movies are unironically outsider art and I don’t think they get enough appreciation for that

[texaschainsawmascara]

[haveyouseenthismovie-poll]

[prokopetz]

The fact that there's a JJBA character named "Lisa Lisa" constantly throws me because literally every single time I see that name I'm immediately seized by a vivid mental image of a live-action adaptation of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure produced with the same directorial style and budgetary constraints as The Room.

[bob-belcher]

[saintfijiwater]

[kimwexlers-brownhair]

Bob Odenkirk To Star In ‘The Room’ Remake For Charity – Deadline

I'm losing my mind

[knightscanfeeltoo]

Messy Room????

(I don't know why I like the Idea of Messmer yelling "You're Tearing Me Apart!!!!" but its just Funny...)

[next-time-you-invite-pam]

Guys, it’s a national holiday.

Tommy Wiseu’s “The Room” turns 20 today.

[poetrywise]

I can't help imagining Lestat reading Louis's bio and shambling into Louis's apartment, like: "I did not fuck him! I did noooot! ...oh, hi, Daniel." With the exact Tommy Wiseau mannerisms.