THE ROOM (2003) ****

I’ve heard so much about Tommy Wiseau’s The Room over the years, but I never really had any desire to watch it.  With all the buzz that The Disaster Artist has been getting, I figured I might as well check it out to see what the fuss is all about.  As a die-hard fan of So Bad It’s Good movies, I had my doubts that this could actually live up to the hype.  Well, I finally get it now.  The Room richly deserves its cult classic status.  If The Disaster Artist is being hailed as the new Ed Wood, then The Room is definitely this generation’s Plan 9 from Outer Space. 

Part Skinamax movie, part bad off-Broadway play (make that high school play), part ego-stroking vanity piece for its director/star, The Room is a wonderfully inept, misguided, and yet strangely heartfelt experience.  Like Ed Wood before him, Wiseau clearly has a vision.  Like Ed Wood, his shortcomings as a director actually enhance the overall experience. 

I just re-read that paragraph and I saw that I called The Room an “experience” not once, but twice.  That’s fairly accurate.  This isn’t necessarily a movie per se, this is a glimpse into the mind of a one-of-a-kind visionary. 

What I love is the way that just about everyone in the movie, with the obvious exception of his cheating girlfriend, treats Wiseau’s character like gold.  Everyone from his barista to a flower shop worker compliments him and/or comments what a great guy he is.  He stacks the deck in his character’s favor in such a childishly positive way that it becomes quite endearing. 

Speaking of endearing, I can’t tell you how funny it is to see four guys in tuxedoes tossing a football around.  Forget that the odds of actually seeing this take place is astronomical.  The unbridled joy in which Wiseau films it is a sight to behold. 

Wiseau acting is another sight to behold.  Never mind the fact that it’s almost impossible to interpret what he’s saying because of his thick accent.  When his excessive emotional acting jags take off, it’s like a rollercoaster of amateurish bravado.  The fact that he gives himself several gratuitous nude and/or love scenes (five inside of the first half-hour) is amazing in and of itself.  In more competent hands, this would’ve come off as narcissistic.  In Wiseau’s hands, it’s a work of goddamned bad movie genius. 

Yes, The Room is a bad movie.  However, like the “best” bad movies, it wears its heart on its sleeve.  Like Ed Wood before him, Wiseau is sincere about his subject matter and his sincerity is as entertaining as his ineptitude.