The Room (Part One): Or, "What a story, Mark!"

To understand the cult classic The Room in all its wonderful, terrible glory, one must examine the crackpot who created it, director, writer, producer, and star, Tommy Wiseau.

This guy.

Tommy's origins are a bit murky. Wiseau is famously tight-lipped about his past, so most of what is known about the man comes from his best friend and costar, Greg Sestero. (Who has, incidentally, written a book about him.) According to Sestero, Wiseau was born sometime in the 1950s, somewhere in the Eastern Bloc of communist Europe. Maybe Poland, but it's rather unclear. Wiseau later moved to France, then to Louisiana to live with his aunt and uncle. After his stay in Louisiana, he moved to San Francisco, California, which would become the setting of The Room. (Trust me, that was necessary. Tommy's accent sounds like Jean-Claude Van Damme with a stroke, doing a poor impersonation of Christopher Walken.)

Wiseau claims to be heavily influenced by James Dean and Marlon Brando. He also derives inspiration from Orson Welles, which is only appropriate for the man who has created what Entertainment Weekly has called the "the Citizen Kane of bad movies."

But enough of that. Let's take our stupid comments out of our pockets and talk about The Room!

The thing about the plot of The Room is that it doesn't have one. Well, not strictly speaking. Most scenes in the film are woodenly acted, don't really go anywhere and just sort of meander off until they end. Our movie, which begins with long tracking shots of San Francisco, follows Johnny, a perfect paragon of sainthood who is in no way a Marty Stu. Seriously. This guy is paying for the down payment on the house of his future wife's (not fiance, it is never fiance) mother's friend, and for the lodging and schooling of possible psychopath Denny (Philip Haldiman). Johnny is pure and good, and nothing that occurs is ever his fault. He's practically Jesus.

Your new god.

Johnny works as some sort of banker (it is never really explained what he does), and he has a pretty good life. He has a promotion coming up at work, and he's about to be married to the sexy Lisa (Juliette Danielle), for whom he buys red dresses and roses. "Anything for my princess," he coos. He takes care of Denny, a boy of ambiguous age and disorder, who "just likes to watch" the couple. His apartment is also full of pictures of spoons. You know, average guy.

Sexy Lisa and the aforementioned cutlery.

But after an incomprehensible three-minute sex scene, complete with navel-fucking and a gratuitous shot of Tommy Wiseau's ass, succubus Lisa has decided that she has grown bored of Johnny. Despite the fact that they will be wed in a month, she doesn't love him anymore; she will remind us this many times throughout the movie. I can only assume that he is terrible in bed, but I guess the belly button thing might be a bit of a turnoff.

Lisa vents her feelings of frustration to her mother, Claudette, but Claudette only reminds her that she and Johnny have been together for over five years, and he is a wonderful person. Besides that, he is apparently a hella catch, because he pays for everything and is way more financially secure than her. This despite the fact that we really only learn that Lisa is in "the computer business," but whatever. For her part, she is totally cool with taking his money.

She calls Johnny's best friend Mark (Greg Sestero), who, if you haven't noticed, is totally best friends with Johnny. They're best friends. Lisa complains to Mark, who, although he is sitting in a parked car, claims to be very busy. She espouses this beautiful contradiction, "She's a stupid bitch. She wants to control my life. I'm not gonna put up with it. I'm gonna do what I wanna do and that's it. What do you think I should do?" Not that I blame her. Mark is fine.

More like Sestosterone.

They meet in Johnny and Lisa's apartment, although Mark is inexplicably confused about Lisa's seduction. "I mean, the candles, the music, the sexy dress...what's going on here?" He gets sorted out pretty quickly. Mark and Lisa have bangin' sex on the spiral staircase while "You're My Rose" plays. I can't really do the song any justice, so I'll let you have a listen for yourself.

Even after that, Mark is baffled, asking, "Why did you do this to me?" They promise to end their affair, except not really. Gotta keep the "plot" moving somehow.

Johnny buys roses from a florist and her doggy, returning home to Lisa. He feels dejected for not getting his promotion, as evidenced by this exchange:

"Did you get your promotion?"
"Nah."
"...you didn't get it, did you?"

"They betrayed me, they didn't keep their promise, they trick me and I am the fool," Johnny declares. Although Johnny doesn't drink, Lisa mixes a concoction of what appears to be scotch and vodka, and they get drunk and eat pizza. Then they have another sex scene, which is really just recycled footage from the first one, navel-fucking and all.

In the next scene, while Lisa is planning Johnny's birthday party, Claudette reveals news about her health in pretty much the most hilarious way ever. "I got the results of the test back. I definitely have breast cancer." If this gripping plot twist has you on the edge of your seat, calm down there. This is The Room, so obviously it is never mentioned again. Lisa claims that Johnny has gotten drunk and hit her, and though she is lying, Claudette's response is only, "Johnny doesn't drink."

Two of Johnny and Lisa's friends, Mike (Scott Holmes) and Michelle (Robyn Paris), later sneak in the house to have sex and eat chocolate, which appears to be a pretty regular thing. Lisa and Claudette catch them, and Claudette gets meta. "What are these characters doing here?" No shit. Claudette meets Denny, and it is revealed that Johnny is like a surrogate father to him. Makes that whole "likes to watch" comment even weirder, if possible.

Some time later, on a rooftop with horrible green screen, Denny plays basketball without a basket and is confronted by an angry drug dealer, Chris-R (Dan Janjigian), who is by far the best part of this movie. Chris-R, for some reason, pulls a gun on everybody's favorite creep.

"Where's my fucking money?"

In record time, Johnny and Mark take down Chris-R and get him arrested. Sorry, Chris-R fangirls, but he will not be coming back. What plot continuity? Also, Claudette and Lisa yell at Denny for getting involved with a drug dealer, which seems a little harsh, considering he was almost killed.

After a brief telephone call between Lisa and Mark, who seems to have forgotten he was having an affair with her, we return to the rooftop. Johnny has heard about Lisa's claim of domestic abuse, and he tells Mark that he is not happy.

The two have a totally not awkward at all conversation about adultery and women. Johnny lays it on pretty thick with the "I love Lisa" stuff, and Mark tells a story about a woman who had so many boyfriends, when one found out, she ended up in a hospital (the fictional one on Guerrero street, natch). Disturbingly, Johnny finds this funny.

Mark leaves, and Denny comes on to the roof and plays football with Johnny. Well, kind of. Denny confesses his love of Lisa, but given that Lisa is apparently the most smoking hot woman on the planet, I am not surprised. Neither, it seems, is Johnny, who tells him, "You can love someone deep inside your heart and there's nothing wrong with it." All things considered, he's pretty supportive of it, which makes it even weirder when he compares Lisa to Denny's mother. Yeah. Not even going near that one.

Johnny and Lisa have a fight when Lisa refuses to communicate with Johnny. He blows up in spectacular Tommy Wiseau fashion, with the now-iconic line, "You are tearing me apart, Lisa!"

...and that's it for Part One! Join me next time for when I tear apart (pun intended) the other half of The Room!