The Room: Difference between revisions

''The Room'' continues to be screened in L.A. and other cities, becoming a [[Cult Classic|cult phenomenon]] of sorts. Showings include interactive affairs à la ''[[The Rocky Horror Picture Show]]'', which are often accompanied with guests throwing plastic spoons at the film (which has a recurring spoon motif), blurting the film's dialogue back at the characters, tossing footballs (themes of [[Author Appeal|touch football]] are [[Playing With a Trope|explored]] in the film) and dressing up as their favorite character.

 

 

There is also [[The Room the Game|a flash game tribute]] to the film [http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/547307 here].

 

* [[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''.

* [[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 (Film)|Citizen Kane]]''. It's just... not done quite as well.

* [[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.]

* [[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]].

* [[Chekhov's Gun]]: {{spoiler|The gun that Mark takes off Chris-R somehow winds up in Johnny's possession}}.

** Also the tape recorder Johnny attaches to his phone.

* [[Coitus Ensues]]: Four times, plus the chocolate session.

* [[Comedic Sociopathy]]: Mark once knew this girl who had a dozen guys...

* [[Dull Surprise]]: "O hai, (fill in the name)!"

* [[Easily Forgiven]]: Mark ''nearly shoves Peter over the edge of the roof'' and is forgiven almost instantly.

* [[Evil Matriarch]]: Lisa's mother guiltlessly, but only [[Heel Face Revolving Door|occasionally]], insists that Lisa take advantage of Johnny for financial reasons, as she seems to have done with her previous husbands. She gets in on the action by trying to bilk the down payment on a house out of Johnny. She has a tendency to touch her finger to Lisa's nose in an awkward facsimile of maternal tenderness.

* [[For the Evulz]]: Lisa is originally just interested in [[Stealth Pun|Johnny's cash]], but after a while she starts to flaunt her affair with Mark, and lies to Johnny about being pregnant just to make things interesting.

* [[Gangsta Style]]: Like any good movie gangsta, Chris-R holds his gun sideways.

* [[Gargle Blaster]]: Half scotch, half vodka, served neat. Scotchka!

{{quote| '''Johnny to {{spoiler|Mark}}:''' "Don't touch me, mothafawker. Get out!"}}

** And then after {{spoiler|Lisa}} is gone: "Get out. Get out! ''GET OUT OFF MY LIIIIIFE!''"

* [[I Am Not Leonard Nimoy]]: It's easier to identify the main character as Tommy Wiseau rather than "Johnny."

* [[I Have This Friend]]: Invoked verbatim by Mark during this rooftop scene with Johnny about infidelity.

* [[Important Haircut]]: Some attention is given to Mark shaving his beard off partway through the film, although it's not at all clear what, if anything, this is supposed to signify.

** The film at that point, [[Growing the Beard|shaves the beard]] and [[Fridge Brilliance|becomes stupider.]]

** Johnny is supposed to be an excellent banker, despite his limited English and vampiric appearance.

** Lisa says she's in "the computer business", whatever that means, but is never shown doing anything resembling work. On the other hand, she's also supposedly unable to support herself.

** Apparently a dozen or so Lisas filmed scenes before either being fired by Wiseau or quitting in disgust, so the lines referring to her beauty may have stayed the same while the appearance of the character changed.

** The makeup doesn't help.

* [[Nippled and Dimed]]: Shockingly averted, there's quite a few lingering shots of Lisa's breasts, including the nipples.

* [[Nobody Calls Me Chicken]]: "You're just a chicken! Cheep-cheep-cheep-cheep-cheep-cheeeeep"

** [[Word of God|According to Wiseau]], the title refers to a person's [[Happy Place]], [[Voodoo Shark|which makes even less sense.]]

* [[Non Sequitur]]:

** All we learn about Mark's job is that he's making some good money (see above). The first time Lisa calls him, he says he's busy, though whether that has anything to do with his job is ambiguous. Especially as when he says this, he's sitting in a parked car, in casual dress.

* [[Oblivious to Love]]: You'd think that Mark would sort of get the hint as to what Lisa wants from him the ''third'' time he is unwittingly seduced by her.

* [[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.

* [[Passed Over Promotion]]: Johnny's failure to be promoted can be interpreted as what inspires Lisa to begin the affair in earnest.

* [[Please Wake Up]]: Denny says this to {{spoiler|Johnny, after his suicide}}.

** Through much of the film, it feels like Denny's part had been written for someone much younger than the actor playing him.

* [[Random Events Plot]]

* [[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.

** Some people believe that the 'I feel like I'm sitting on an atomic bomb' line is a shout out to the famous sequence in ''[[Dr. Strangelove]]''.

* [[Sir Swearsalot]]: Chris-R.

* [[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]]: [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.

* [[That Makes Me Feel Angry]]: "You're tearing me apart, Lisa!"

* [[The Topic of Cancer]]: Lisa's mother brings up her cancer once. No one ever speaks of it again.

* [[Too Good for This Sinful Earth]]: "I fed up with this '''WARULD'''!"

* [[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).

* [[Voodoo Shark]]: The drug dealer scene, which apparently exists only to give Johnny {{spoiler|a gun}}, raises far more questions than it answers. Why does the adopted child of a millionaire banker who funds his every whim need to sell drugs to make ends meet? If the dealer's going to jail, why don't the police need his gun for evidence? Why the hell didn't Mark just get rid of it if they didn't? And why couldn't Johnny simply have had a gun, given his (presumed) ability to legally own one?

** Lisa's mom casually mentions her cancer to her dismissive daughter early in the movie, but it is never mentioned again and the mom becomes preoccupied with other, more trivial matters.

** The drug subplot vanishes immediately after the scene ends, seemingly serving only to introduce {{spoiler|the gun}}.

[[Category:Films of the 2000s]]

[[Category:The Room]]