Automoderated users, Autopatrolled users, Bureaucrats, Comment administrators, Confirmed users, Forum administrators, Interface administrators, Moderators, Rollbackers, Administrators
116,199
edits
The Room: Difference between revisions
removed redlink, markup, copyedits
m (Mass update links) |
Looney Toons (talk | contribs) (removed redlink, markup, copyedits) |
||
| (21 intermediate revisions by 8 users not shown) | |||
Line 1:
{{work}}
[[File:TheRoomMovie.jpg|
|'''Johnny'''}}
{{quote|''The Room'''s fame rests on its apparently abysmal quality.
▲{{quote|"''You are [[Large Ham|tearing me apart]], Lisa!''"|'''Johnny'''}}
|Justice Markus Koehnen, in his 2017 judgment overturning an injunction against the documentary ''Room Full of Spoons''}}
'''''The Room''''' is a [[Mind Screw|very strange]] 2003 film by an unlikely filmmaker named Tommy Wiseau. It is ostensibly about a man, Johnny, played by Wiseau, tortured by the betrayal of his fiancée Lisa and his best friend, Mark, who are having an affair together.
It was made on a budget of ''$6 million'', even though you'd never know it. The only real locales are the eponymous room, a different room, and a rooftop, punctuated with [[Stock Footage]] establishing shots of San Francisco just to spice things up.
Line 15 ⟶ 18:
It was exposed to a national audience for the first time on [[Adult Swim]] on [[April Fools' Day]], 2009. Tommy Wiseau was also the focus of a ''[[Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!]]'' episode which aired immediately after the 2009 showing, causing Adult Swim fans to refer to it as ''[[Fan Nickname|The Tim and Eric Movie]]''. A [[Riff Trax]] commentary for the film was released in 2009.
There is also [[The Room:
[https://youtu.be/OApQGRkJzkE See the trailer on YouTube].
Not to be confused with ''[[Silent Hill]] [[Silent Hill 4|4: The Room]]'', ''Room'' by Emma Donoghue, ''The Room'' by [[Harold Pinter]] (which isn't quite as awkward), or ''The Room'', a Hubert Selby Jr. novel.
----▼
{{Needs More Info}}
▲----
{{tropelist}}
* [[Adaptation Expansion]]: The [[Screen to Stage Adaptation]], which adds new characters (Travis, Claudette's lover, and Scott, Denny's friend), and a few [[Throw It In|improvised]] scenes. [[Word of God|Tommy Wiseau]] says that the play is canon to the mythology of ''The Room''.
* [[April Fools' Day]]: [[Adult Swim]] has this as a prank sometimes. [[And the Fandom Rejoiced|But during a twist in the latest prank..]]
* [[Ambiguous Disorder]]: Denny in seems completely ignorant of social norms and generally acts much younger than his apparent age, at one point leaping into bed with Johnny and Lisa as they are about to have sex. In an interview, director Tommy Wiseau admitted that Denny is "retarded, a little bit," but the actor was never informed of this.
* [[Anger Montage]]: Quite possibly one of the wimpiest, most half-hearted Anger Montages in the history of film, right at the end, culminating with Johnny [[Tantrum Throwing|tossing a television set through his window]]. It's especially silly because, in many ways, the scene mirrors a similar scene from ''[[Citizen Kane]]''. It's just... not done quite as well.
* [[Angrish]]: During his [[Anger Montage]], Johnny screams like this.
* [[Ask a Stupid Question]]: Lisa and Mark are ''really'' fond of this.
* [[Ate His Gun]]: {{spoiler|Johnny}} ends up doing this at the end of the movie.
Line 31 ⟶ 38:
* [[Author Appeal]]:
** Tommy Wiseau enjoys [[Cinemax]]-style love scenes set to cheesy R&B, as there are several.
*** Specifically, according to others involved in the movie, Tommy Wiseau enjoyed scenes of himself making out and being in bed with women much younger and much more attractive than himself.
** When asked in the DVD director's interview why there are so many scenes of characters playing catch with a football, Wiseau simply responds that [[Rule of Fun|football is fun]].
* [[Author Tract]]: Cast members have alleged that Lisa represents what Wiseau thinks of women.
{{quote|
* [[Bitch in Sheep's Clothing]]: Lisa. As the movie goes on it's implied that this is the result of Claudette's parental advice, which becomes increasingly amoral throughout the film. At one point Peter suspects that she's a sociopath of some form.
* [[Body Horror]]: [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqL0OEcM1X4 Lisa's neck.]
* [[Busman's Holiday]]: Peter the psychologist. He is always playing psychologist.
* [[Captain Obvious Aesop]]: Wiseau claims the message of the film is "If a lot of people love each other, the world would be a better place to live."
** Considering he says this in the context of Denny confessing his love for Lisa, its also a [[Broken Aesop]].
* [[Catch Phrase]]: One of the film's major themes is the constant repetition of a certain few lines of dialogue by various characters. They include:
** "O hai, X!" This is used by all characters, and in such a way that they all seem constantly surprised to see each other.
*** It turns into a [[Running Gag]] in the [[Riff Trax]] dub. "Oh hai, newspaper. Oh hai, sidewalk. {{spoiler|[[Driven to Suicide|Oh hai, gunbarrel.]]}} Oh hai, Rifftrax."
** "Everything will be fine" and "Don't worry about it." For some reason, no one really wants to confront the seriousness of anything that's going on in the story, from doomed marriages to cancer.
** "It's an awkward situation."
Line 59 ⟶ 67:
* [[Coitus Ensues]]: Four times, plus the chocolate session.
* [[Comedic Sociopathy]]: Mark once knew this girl who had a dozen guys...
{{quote|
'''Johnny''': Ha ha ha. What a story, Mark. }}
* [[Comically Missing the Point]]: Johnny manages to take so long to work out Mark and Lisa are having an affair that even when he ''walks in on them slow dancing and stroking each other'' he still doesn't get it straight away.
{{quote|
'''Johnny:''' Can I meet her?
'''Mark:''' I don't think so. It's... it's an awkward situation.
'''Johnny:''' You mean she's [[Christmas Cake|too old]], or you think I will take her away from you? }}
* {{spoiler|[[Death of the Hypotenuse]]}}: {{spoiler|Johnny kills himself}}.
{{quote|
''' {{spoiler|Mark}}''': {{spoiler|You don't have me! You'll NEVER have me!}} }}
* [[Despair Event Horizon]]: "Everybody betray me. I fed up with this ''wirruld''."
Line 85 ⟶ 93:
* [[Gargle Blaster]]: Half scotch, half vodka, served neat. Scotchka!
* [[Get Out!]]:
{{quote|
** And then after {{spoiler|Lisa}} is gone: "Get out. Get out! ''GET OUT OFF MY LIIIIIFE!''"
* [[Hammerspace]]: Continuity problems often cause characters to suddenly gain and lose objects between cuts.
** Denny loses his apple after walking up the stairs to jump on Johnny's and Lisa's bed.
{{quote|
** Lisa suddenly produces a vase for Johnny's flowers.
** After overhearing Lisa tell her mother about her affair, Johnny walks immediately over to his phone and sets down a tape recorder he wasn't carrying so he can hook it up to the phone.
Line 110 ⟶ 118:
* [[Ironic Echo]]: "You just a chicken. <small>CHEEP CHEEP CHEEP CHEEP CHEEP CHEEP</small>!"
* [[I Take Offense to That Last One]]: An indirect example.
{{quote|
'''Claudette:''' [[Comically Missing the Point|Johnny doesn't drink!]] }}
* [[Karma Houdini]]: For some reason, Mark is ''blameless'' when Lisa cheats on Johnny with him -- all four times. {{spoiler|When Johnny commits suicide, Mark is indignant at ''her''.}} It takes two to tango, and he tangoed four times ''knowingly'' with his best friend's steady girlfriend and fiancée.
Line 130 ⟶ 138:
* [[Nobody Calls Me Chicken]]: "You're just a chicken! Cheep-cheep-cheep-cheep-cheep-cheeeeep"
* [[Non-Indicative Name]]: ''The Room''. Despite the title, the characters are neither [[Closed Circle|trapped in a room]] nor is there anything particularly strange about their apartment.
** [[Word of God|According to Wiseau]], the title refers to a person's [[Happy Place]], [[Voodoo Shark|which makes even less sense.]]
* [[Non Sequitur]]:
** "Anyway, how is your sex life?"
Line 140 ⟶ 148:
* [[One-Hour Work Week]]: Johnny comes from work, then apparently never goes back again, given that he spends day after day playing with Mark and Denny.
* [[One-Scene Wonder]]: Chris-R. He's not the only one, though. Characters drift in and out of the film like a fever dream.
* [[One Steve Limit]]: Just [[They Just Didn't Care|an odd example of laziness]]: the couple found having sex in the apartment are "Mike" and "Michelle", which are the same name, just masculine and feminine.
* [[Only One Name]]: Everybody. There are no last names in the whole film.
* [[Only Sane Man]]: Peter is the only one who hesitates to play football in a tuxedo. Rather appropriately, the character vanishes right after that scene because the actor quit.
Line 153 ⟶ 161:
* [[Rooftop Confrontation]]
* [[Screen to Stage Adaptation]]: There have been several, but the "official" adaptation is ''The Room: Live'', in which Tommy Wiseau and Greg Sestero reprise their roles from the film.
* [[Screw the Rules, I Have Money]]: Out-of-universe example. Greg Sestero revealed in his book that once he got SAG membership, Tommy wanted it too... but the minimum for SAG membership is a speaking role in a commercial. So Tommy made a commercial for a property he owned, cast himself in it, and paid to have it aired. He essentially ''bought himself'' a SAG membership. Sestero mused that the SAG must have been scrambling to find some sort of way to reject him based on this loophole, but couldn't manage to.
* [[Shaggy Dog Story]]
* [[Shout-Out]]:
Line 162 ⟶ 171:
* [[Spin-Off]]: Tommy Wiseau plans on creating a novelization of ''The Room''. There's already a Flash game tribute (see below).
* [[Stock Footage]]: They used clips of the first sex scene in the second sex scene. Allegedly, the actress playing Lisa refused to let Tommy Wiseau near her to film another one. Which makes sense.
* [[Suspiciously Similar Substitute]]: [https://web.archive.org/web/20090617102354/http://blog.rifftrax.com/2009/06/12/rifftrax-interview-with-the-rooms-greg-ellery/ A particularly lazy example.] The actor playing Peter the psychiatrist got fed up and quit, so Wiseau went out and cast a new actor to play Peter, then changed the name of the character to Steven, then ditched the suit-and-glasses look for the character so that Steven becomes a random friend who shows up for the last 19 minutes of the movie with no introduction and delivers an impassioned, if hammy, performance as though he's already deeply invested in what's going on. It probably would have made more sense to give those lines to an already-established character, such as Mike.
{{quote|
** The flash game mocks this by having Peter get run over on the way to the party by Chris-R, having just carjacked Johnny.
* [[Suspiciously Specific Denial]]: During Mark's "do you think girls have affairs" dialog with Johnny, it's ''painfully'' obvious that Mark is asking Johnny if he knows his girlfriend is having an affair with him. He denies it has anything to do with himself and is just about "[[I Have This Friend|a friend]]".
Line 172 ⟶ 181:
* [[This Is for Emphasis, Bitch]]: "In a few minutes, bitch!" said by Johnny while weeping in the bathroom.
* [[Too Good for This Sinful Earth]]: "I fed up with this '''WARULD'''!"
* [[Took the Bad Film Seriously]]: A surprising number of the people in this movie were actually taking it seriously, since it was the first (and only) acting job they'd been able to get in Hollywood. Of course, by the end, no one who'd seen more than a few scenes of Wiseau's acting was really doing anything but trying to get through it and meet their professional commitments.
** Special mention goes to the guy who played Chris-R. Despite not being a professional actor, he was apparently extremely psyched to be asked to be in a movie, and took his role and scenes ''very'' seriously.
* [[Ugly Guy, Hot Wife|Ugly Guy, Hot Future Wife]]: Johnny and Lisa.
* [[Unexplained Accent]]: Johnny has a thick accent, vaguely French or Eastern European, yet no one ever mentions it or where Johnny came from. The closest Johnny comes is recalling when he arrived in San Francisco. The accent is unexplained in real life too. Wiseau makes contradictory claims to be from either France or New Orleans, though the letter W is fairly uncommon in the French language so it's unlikely that Wiseau is a real French name. It seems more like a bad approximation of the word "Oiseau" ("bird" in French).
Line 187 ⟶ 198:
* [[You Owe Me]]: "I want to talk, right now. [[Coitus Ensues|You owe me one anyway]]."
----
{{quote|
}}
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Notable Quotables]]
[[Category:Adult Swim (Creator)]]▼
[[Category:Riff Trax (Podcast)]]▼
[[Category:Films of the 2000s]]
[[Category:The Room]]
[[Category:Film]]
[[Category:Independent Films]]
[[Category:Memetic Works]]
[[Category:Cult Classic]]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Room, The}}
| |||