First Take Classics: The Room- not the one that won all those Oscars

SYNOPSIS: Johnny is a successful banker who lives happily in a San Francisco townhouse with his fiancée, Lisa. One day, inexplicably, she gets bored with him and decides to seduce his best friend, Mark. From there, nothing will be the same again.

Widely regarded as the worst film ever made, The Room is one of those films that instantly attained cult classic status. And after talking about it a lot with my colleagues at uni (and the fact that The Disaster Artist, the film about the making of this so called classic is in cinemas now), I just had to review it, and it is so bad and unintentionally hilarious at the same time.

Tommy Wiseau is the man in charge of making this film, creating what he seen as a serious passion project- of course, his script is all over the place, with some incredibly dark humour, weird pacing and poor dialogue resulting in some incredible WTF moments that are both confusing yet equally enjoyable. I can understand why he wanted this much control on his film (directing, writing and producing it), he is very much into his film, but it does feel like a vanity project. It’s shot well by Todd Barron, and the score from Mladan Milicevic is very obviously iconic, but if the stories from the film’s production are to be believed, it’s surprising that I’m even reviewing this with the chaos that ensued on set.

The performances are really what define the film. Wiseau obviously takes the lead role in his own unique and inimitable style (people who know the film well will understand what I mean when I say ‘you are tearing me apart’), and with his friend Greg Sestero in a supporting role, there is a unique chemistry there- but as for the rest of the cast, which includes Juliette Danielle, Philip Haldiman and Kyle Vogt amongst others, their below average work creates the film’s unique selling point- a serious film that so bad it’s good. How he got the funding to do it is a question in itself, but Mr Wiseau has crafted something that defined the meme before it even existed.

THE VERDICT

To quote the man himself, The Room is ‘whatever you want it to be- you can laugh, you can cry, you can express yourself, but please don’t hurt each other’. Sure, it’s an awful film, but that’s what makes it so damn enjoyable, especially with a lively audience.

Rating: -5/5