My Experience at "The Room" Celebration
I’ve heard stuff about screenings of The Room. People come in costume, yell, throw spoons at the screen, or footballs at each other, fistfights break out, theater managers have had to stop the movie mid-show because of unruly audiences. It’s been called a frat boy movie. It’s The Rocky Horror Picture Show on crack.
My showing, on the other hand, appeared to be peopled by comfortably reasonable, mature individuals, mostly Gen X and Gen Y, wearing regular clothes. Even nicer, since the theater was only half full I had a respectable buffer zone of empty seats around my usual fourth-row aisle seat (Different theater, same seat. That’s my life, y’all.).
I thought of the few spoons I had stashed in my purse for the occasion and resigned myself to getting right down into the action a la Ernie Pyle, only I would live to tell the tale.
Of course, this depended on whether or not others were throwing utensils themselves. Let they who lack inhibition cast the first spoon.
The Room is every bit as hilarious as we’ve all heard. It’s every bit as trashy as we’ve all heard. Only I think those who I’ve heard talk about it have held back, probably because they don’t want to ruin it for the uninitiated.
Me, I’m in the mood to ruin a few things, so feel free to skip the next three paragraphs.
Johnny is a banker who’s all set to marry his fiancee, Lisa, except no one uses that word in the movie. It’s always “future wife.” What Johnny doesn’t know is that Lisa is cheating on him with Mark, his best friend, who conveniently happens to live in the same building.
There’s also this creepy kid named Denny who likes watching Johnny and Lisa go the way of all flesh, but fortunately we don’t see this take place. Oh, no. The first sex scene happens within ten minutes of the opening credits and Denny gets kicked out of the bedroom. Yay.
Speaking of the bedroom, about all we see from Lisa is her either coming home with her mother or staying home all day, and it’s like she’s just waiting to get horizontal. It happens frequently throughout the movie, and always very slowly to horrendously cheesy 90s-style Muzak. Lisa’s life is very, very small.
Also, Tommy Wiseau seems to be a little hazy on the purpose of belly buttons, and that’s all I’m going to say about that.
Things escalate when Lisa, who is bored with Johnny, starts telling people that Johnny hit her. He might support her and give her everything, but she wants to be with Mark. It all comes to a head the night of Johnny’s party, because Lisa and Mark, brainiacs that they are, can’t stay away from each other even though there are people everywhere. Wonderful.
There are plenty of things that make The Room a terrible movie. The continuity, for one thing, is awful. We see random shots of various locations around San Francisco, like the Golden Gate Bridge or Geary Street or Market Street or the Palace of Fine Arts, and so on. It could be any time of day or night in any of these shots. And then we return to the scene, which has nothing to do with those random shots and can also be any time of day or night.
And the dialogue is incredibly sloppy. There are non-sequiturs everywhere, like when Johnny and Mark are having coffee and Johnny pivots from talking about work to “How’s your sex life?” The awkwardness of that scene is saved two seconds later when Johnny rushes off to work.
Redundancy is also a thing. There’s a scene when Lisa and Johnny are fighting and Lisa goes upstairs, but not before she tells Johnny, “Don’t worry about it.” Then Johnny, who’s sitting on the couch looking glum, says to Lisa, “Don’t worry about it.” This kind of repetition happens all the time throughout the movie. And these characters are always saying, “Talk to you later,” as if they’re on the phone.
I will say this, though: The flower shop scene is wonderful. The dialogue is badly delivered and out of sequence, the dog is cutely motionless, and all Johnny has to do to not be recognized is wear his sunglasses. The entire movie is worth it because of the flower shop scene.
The screening was worth it, too. Not a single spoon was thrown. Not a football. Everyone ate popcorn, laughed their heads off and talked to the screen the whole time. One guy even sang the “Imperial March” from Star Wars whenever Lisa’s mom came onto the screen. It was like being at home with a bunch of friends, except I didn’t know any of these people and couldn’t see any of their faces. They were like voices in my head narrating one of the oddest and funniest moviegoing experiences I have ever had. I don’t know if I would do it again, and I definitely would not recommend The Room to everyone, but it’s not something I’m going to easily forget.
The Room shows in select theaters on occasion. Rated R.
My grades: F (for the movie), A+ (for the so-bad-it’s-goodness)
Principal Cast: Tommy Wiseau, Juliette Danielle, Greg Sestero, Philip Haldeman, Carolyn Minnott, Robyn Paris, Mike Holmes, Dan Janjigian, Kyle Vogt, Greg Ellery, Piper Gore, Kari McDermott
Directed and written by Tommy Wiseau.