The Room: a film, a travesty, an experience

The Room, Tommy Wiseau’s magnum opus and the best worst film ever made, is not merely an unredeemable heresy to the art of cinema. It’s a wonderful experience.

The film appears to be rather unassuming. It’s the tragic tale of Johnny (played by writer, director, producer, and actor Wiseau), a caring, hard-working man whose personal life unravels over the course of a few weeks. His fiancée Lisa cheats on him with his best friend Mark, a fact made even more heartbreaking by Johnny’s proclivity to naïvely repeat “I love Lisa and Mark is my best friend” ad nauseum. On top of this, he didn’t get his promotion at work, his future mother-in-law supposedly has breast cancer, and his apartment is littered with framed pictures of cutlery. Johnny’s life is a tragedy, and The Room invites the viewer to learn something from that tragedy.

But instead of giving viewers a lesson in dealing with pain and disappointment, Wiseau rather takes it upon himself to redefine the art of storytelling. Make no mistake: the term “plot” has a very tenuous definition in this context. Storylines are introduced for no apparent reason and with no consequence; characters’ motives range from counterintuitive to mentally unsound; and the first third of the film is essentially one continuous sex scene that intermittently cuts to Johnny complaining about not having enough sex. Combine this with dialogue that reads like the drunken musings of a finite number of monkeys clawing at a single typewriter and you have the makings of a juggernaut of a train wreck, complete with appallingly dubbed audio.

I cannot overemphasise how terrible this film is. On a purely creative and technical standpoint, it is no exaggeration to hold that there is absolutely nothing redeeming about it. So why, despite all this, have I willingly sat through The Room in its entirety seven times and spent over £50 on screenings?

Allow me to explain. In the realm of terrible film, there seem to be two main categories: films that are so bad it pains you to watch them, and films that can be enjoyed “ironically.” Now, The Room is one of those rare feats of cinema that transcends both of those categories. It is so perfectly horrific that it has become a legitimately entertaining experience.

People flock to screenings of The Room for 90 minutes of the most fun you can have in a cinema. Some dress up, others bring cups of Johnny’s favourite drink, skotchka, and some just sit back and enjoy everything that goes on around them. Throughout the film, fans will quote entire scenes in unison or yell out the first thing they think of. Some jokes will crop up at every screening (be sure to bring along plastic spoons to throw at the screen… it makes sense in context), while others vary depending on the audience. It’s a no holds barred celebration and mockery of our era’s most unique cinematic experience. When you’re in a packed cinema, singing along to bottom of the barrel 90s R&B with complete strangers while watching an onscreen couple flail their limbs in each other’s general direction, you know you’re witnessing something disturbingly special.

These days, Wiseau has embraced his creation’s infamy. He travels around the world, attending screenings and giving interviews, now calling The Room a black comedy. Whether it was always intended to be a black comedy, though, remains uncertain. Still, intentional or otherwise, Wiseau’s work is a profound accomplishment, failing on every level as a film while succeeding as an interactive experience.

I cannot overemphasise how terrific that experience is. If you’re ever in London, be sure to go to a screening of The Room at the Prince Charles Cinema in Leicester Square. They show the film at least once a month and the turnout is always impressive. Occasionally, Wiseau himself will drop by for a Q&A session, and everything that man says is hysterical (again, no one is sure whether or not it’s intentional). You will leave the cinema an older, wiser human being with new lifelong friends. You will finally understand the emotional impact of your fiancée tearing you apart. The Room will change you.