The Room | Big Joel

Tommy Wiseau's the room is a huge phenomenon people love it there's midnight screenings of it there's t-shirts there's a book about it written by one of the stars there's a movie being made out of that book starring James Franco but in all this attention that's been paid to it all the call to claim it's received the questions remain what is going on in this movie what is it actually about what makes it great or terrible or whatever it is I think there's this really big temptation with the room so look at Tommy Wiseau's face to look at the nonsensical plot and the terrible acting and lump it in with plan 9 from outer space and Birdemic to call it a so bad it's good movie and leave it at that and I don't disagree with that sentiment exactly I mean it is a so bad it's good movie it definitely is that but the more I've looked at it the more I think that this label doesn't do justice to all the things going on here so in this video I'm gonna do a deep dive into the room not to figure out if the movie is great or awful or to even address quality at all but to simply ask and hopefully answer what's with this movie what I'm going to do to start looking at the room is to take you through what you could consider the film's main tendency and that's the desire to create a feeling of realism I know that's kind of a surprising thing to say considering just how weird the movie is but really part of what makes the movie so weird is it strange loyalty to showing us life as it really happens you can see this tendency throughout the movie the instinct to prize what feels normal everyday slice of life the desire to make you feel like you're not just watching a movie you're watching the real lives of real people as their lives and secrets unfold so let's look at the first scene because we movie starts off movie with a sense of strange realism I have something for you what is it just a little something Johnny it's beautiful thank you I try it on now sure it's yours you wait right here hmm try it on right now in this opening bit of dialogue we can see how a so uses repetition to try to make the characters feel more alive more organic most films are written with efficiency in mind characters traditionally aren't supposed to say lines unless those lines further the action or develop character but was so boldly goes against that tradition choosing to have least to repeat the sentiment that she should try on the dress by including this repetition was so is trying to make Lisa feel like a person a human who sometimes needs to repeat things who doesn't just say everything to move action forward what's amazing is that this repetition is doubled later in the scene isn't it fabulous I would do anything for my girl oh hey guys wow look at you it's from Johnny anything for my princess here in a kind of weird way johnny is posed as a realistic character who repeats things like a real person would not everything he says is original or necessary sometimes he just sort of says things seemingly because they're just stuck in his brain I would do anything for my girl anything for my princess was those use of unnecessary information and dialogue that he uses to reinforce a sense of realism comes through in a number of scenes let's look at one of the most mundane scenes in the film Johnny and his friend Mark ordering at a coffee place okay a common adage of screenwriters and directors is start Lee finished early and if we so we're following that advice he would start the scene from the point where mark starts talking about how he's tired of playing games with women so tired of girls games what happened now mark instead of choosing to start the scene here or at least with Johnny and mark or during which so has not one but two couples order before he and mark do for that matter the director has this weird cheesecake subplot going on here were one member of each proceeding couple orders the cheesecake and then the waitress urges Johnny to try the cheesecake by including these couples and by including the detail of the cheesecake were so creates the feeling that the world pre-exists Johnny's appearance in it this waitress was already selling acclaimed cheesecake people were already buying it and Johnny and his friend are just one part of that bigger picture another more extreme example of the world being rendered as a real place that Johnny is not the center of occurs with a series of scenes between Mike and Michelle these two characters friends of Johnny and Lisa are almost entirely unrelated to the plot of the room the scene where they're introduced has literally nothing to do with anything [Music] hello what's so interesting about it though is that was so wasn't happy just having one unnecessary scene with mostly unnecessary characters he insists on having an unnecessary scene discussing this unnecessary scene that concerns unnecessary characters later on in the film when Mike is talking to Johnny he retells the narrative of him getting caught with his girlfriend but we're going at it and I get out of there as fast as possible you know I get my pants I get my shirt and I get out of it and then about halfway down the stairs I realized that I I have misplaced I I've forgotten something mm-hmm my underwear so I come back to get it you know and I pretend that I need a book you know I'm not looking for my book and then I reach and put the underwear my pocket and show us slide out real quick well Claudette she saw it sticking out of my pocket she pulls it out and she's showing everybody the underwears I like this series of scenes a lot because they highlight how far was so is willing to go to make the world of the room seem larger than Johnny and Lisa failing relationship as an audience we're forced to consider the possibility that the room isn't only about the main conflicts but about a weird world of interlocking relationships where in any information is not only worth showing but also sometimes worth retelling unlike the Mike and Michelle scenes in which pointless minutiae I is shown and then later inexplicably talked about there's this scene where something huge and insane happens and then it's just never spoken about again where's my money [ __ ] Danny Danny look at me in the eyes and tell me the truth were your friends I bought some drugs off of him although this drug scene feels completely different from the Mike and Michelle me underwears situation it strengthens with so's attempt to make the movie seem more naturalistic here's Denny a character who's already secondary to the main action of the film suddenly he's given a subplot that not only generates dire conflict but also suggests that Denny has a turbulent history when was so was asked why this scene but Denny was included he said well because this is again you know if we do an entire movie about Danny let's assume that for one minute what will happen you will not ask this question now you say what happened to Danny what's happened is that that's the idea behind it this weird and rambling quote really gets at how far was so is willing to go to make characters in his movie feel somehow real like they have a history like Denny is mixed up with drugs but it's not because it's related to some greater plot structure it's just because that's sort of what Denny's going through right now and he wants to tell you about it another aspect of this scene that shows a loyalty to realism is that it concerns drugs a systemic problem that exists in the background of the whole film and can be used to explain a lot of what characters do wrong drugs are everywhere in this movie for the beginning of the film Lisa manipulates Johnny into drinking this disgusting vodka scotch slurry Johnny's drinking is seen as a failing of this character has made evident by this conversation between Lisa and her mother well at least you have a good man you're wrong mom he's not what you think he is he didn't get his promotion and he got drunk last night and he hit me Johnny doesn't drink in this scene Johnny's drinking rather than his extensible hitting of his future wife is viewed as the true sin his failure to maintain sobriety is posed as the ultimate cause of their domestic conflict this demonization of drugs occurs with mark later on when he sits on the roof smoking weed Peter the psychologist criticizes him for using drugs why are you smoking that crap there's no one you can think straight it's gonna screw up your head and this same scene mark briefly holds Peter over the edge of a building this violent scene can be seen as the direct result of weed smoking whereas Peter finds mark smoking unacceptable he gets over the attempted murder at record speeds okay yeah fine let's just talk about your problem this is the same as the Claudette scene I just showed where Johnny's drinking is the problem not his supposed beating the social illness of drug addiction is the issue not the resulting actions so we come back to this Denney scene the problem here clearly isn't just that Danny got in over his head it's not even that he did something illegal and life-threatening it's that he specifically got into drugs this is highlighted from Claudette's reaction how did you get involved with drugs how are you giving them to him selling I'm joined when the hell did you meet that man what did you take so yeah by posing problems in the movie is highly related to drugs and by placing weight on the drugs over the acts that those drugs caused was so Ty's conflict in the movie to greater social problems he makes it clear that his priority isn't only the unfolding of plot or the development of character but the world that surrounds the room a world that exists and operates outside the scope of the narrative now that I've looked at the rooms realistic tendencies it's important to start talking about how these tendencies are underscored by other incredibly weird uncanny unnatural choices that was so minx let's look at a scene toward the beginning of the movie the flower shop scene yeah can I have a dozen red roses please oh hi Johnny I didn't know was you here you go that's me how much is it it'll be $18 go keep the change hi doggie you're my favorite customer thanks a lot bye now according to everything I just said about realism and the room this scene should work with Wiseau's desire to make the film world seem realistic and decentered from Johnny the scene is completely unnecessary if it hadn't existed no other aspect of the room would change in the least it has no purpose in the movie and as such it can be seen as part of Wiseau's desire to make his film seem more organic but like really look at this scene so many things are off about it if you watch closely the pace of the scene seems so rapidly accelerate as it progresses like it starts with Johnny taking his time parking his car and walking to the front of the store and the first few lines don't seem to be taking an especially short time but toward the end the characters seem almost desperate for the scene to end Johnny even says keep the change in a clear attempt to cut the scene as fast as possible how much is it it'll be 18 keep the change moreover the lines in the scene just feel out of place and downright strange for instance the cashiers lying oh hi Johnny I didn't know was you makes no sense do Johnny's trademark sunglasses really mask this man's almost absurdly distinctive face the face of her favorite customer these elements completely clashed with the slice of life mundane world was so seems to be trying to construct so in the first part of this video I mentioned how repetition of lines in the first scene creates the impression that characters in the room are speaking in a natural realistic way we have the opening scene where Lisa says she'll try on the dress right now and we have the coffee shop scene in which multiple customers give a similar order but the extent to which was so repeats things in the film goes way beyond the realistic and enters the worlds of weird almost creepiness for one the characters repeat themselves constantly each character has a few trademark catchphrases that they use and reuse in the film and these catchphrases don't work in the same way that like sitcom catchphrases do where the character says the line sometimes as a punchline to a running joke instead which so uses catchphrases in a way that's entirely unique to filmmaking there's Johnny's ohai which he uses every time another character enters the room oh hi there oh hi Mike what's due bye there's Lisa's you owe me one which she uses to get the other characters to do what she wants you owe me one anyway you owe me one there's Johnny's let's go home that he uses repeatedly at the end of scenes let's go home let's go home let's go home Timmy in these cases the characters often repeated catchphrases seem to serve as a dialogue writing shortcut a tool by which characters have a preset way of starting continuing or ending a scene that doesn't require the introduction of a new line by using catchphrases which so makes his characters seem almost robotic and he thereby undercuts any feeling of naturalism that he's trying to accomplish in other aspects of the film if an audience member can watch a scene see a character walk in and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that johnny is going to say hi there then it doesn't feel like real life where people sometimes repeat themselves it kind of feels like a nightmare the distorting nightmarish impact of these catchphrases doesn't stop here though because was so not only has his characters repeat their own catch phrases over and over again he has them repeat catchphrases that are just generally used by many of the characters in the film for instance characters say some variation of I have to go over and over in the film I have to go I have to go home they say it even if this isn't appropriate to the scene at all in this scene Johnny did you get a new dress well I guess I better be going up Johnny literally asks Michelle a question is that a new dress and she responds with this same catchphrase a variation on I gotta go another example of these generally repeated catchphrases is I don't want to talk about it which characters in the film say at various points sometimes even though they brought up the issue that they don't want to talk about I had sex or someone else you can't be serious you don't understand who who is it I don't want to talk about it you don't want to talk about it then why did you bring it up in the first place we're so presumably has his characters say this to avoid them repeating themselves are saying dialogue he doesn't want to include that is to say the characters don't want to talk about it when was so doesn't want them to talk about it by having his character share a set of innocuous catchphrases was so makes it obvious that his characters were all written by the same person that they have no real identity beyond their existence in Wiseau's imagination these verbal tics go completely against a sense of naturalism they insist that the world of the room is an invention a place where characters speak in order to continue the action a place where in realism is secondary to furthering the plot in a wider context the movie seems to revolve around a few scenes that repeat themselves over and over again for example a scene where Lisa and her mother Claudette speak on Lisa's relationship to Johnny is repeated four times in the movie these Claudette Lisa scenes are in precise replicas of each other but each one insists on repeating the same set of information Lisa doesn't love Johnny Claudette wants Lisa to stay with him etc 11 meaning please don't hurt Johnny I don't love Johnny anymore I don't even like him it's not right Lisa I still think you should marry Johnny in a lot of ways the repetition of this scene is similar to the number of catch for which so seems to be wanting to construct real drama here he wants to show us the slice of life conflict lisa is going through but rather than including new scenes to show the audience this conflict he uses a shortcut recycles the same scene over and over this causes the characters to have an extremely limited number of ways of interacting with each other for instance with a few minor exceptions Lisa basically has two things she does seduce men and talk about not wanting to be with Johnny claudia has a similar situation she sometimes says other things but her only purpose in any scene is to tell Lisa to be with Johnny what's interesting is how the limited numbers of ways characters have to act works with the more realistic tendencies of the movie let's look at one of the most famous scenes in the movies nobody wants to help me and I'm dying you're not dying mom I got the results of the tests back I definitely have breast cancer look don't worry about it everything will be fine so in this scene Claudette does a really realistic thing she alludes to her story as a character makes you aware that she has a world outside of Lisa's relationship to Johnny but once this line is said which so seems to reflexively pull back forces characters into their status quo it's going to be fine mom in essence she's saying your character and your situation is not the real reason we're talking every single Lisa Claudette scene has this pattern Claudette says a few words about how awful her life is going but these complaints are never received as significant she says them Lisa barely registers what she's saying and the characters go back to the only thing they can talk about Johnny the naturalism of the mothers circumstances are always immediately countered by the fact that above anything else Tommy Wiseau prizes the strict boundaries he places around his characters over their authenticity let's look at the way marks the scenes repeat now a scene in which Lisa seduces him is repeated a lot in this movie and each scene is almost identical to the last mark comes in hesitant Lisa comes at him he denies her for a moment always saying what are you doing before finally caving in and having sex with her what are you doing this for what are you crazy everybody's here these repetitions of scenes are not only an example of was so using shortcuts for writing his characters but also prevent mark from coming across as a multi-dimensional character who progresses with the plot he's constantly repeated what are you doing which the actor Greg Sestero always chooses to read as completely oblivious conveys the idea that Mark really doesn't know what's happening that he's sincerely in the dark to what Lisa wants from him this repetition is especially uncanny because it makes no sense people in real life may repeat things over and over again but they're able to learn and think for themselves if the last time I talked to Lisa she wanted to have sex with me she'll probably want that again but there is no learning in Mark's character and that creates a really distorting unnatural effect one mark Lisa seen in particular gets it the extent to which mark is a completely static character why did you do this to me he's my best friend didn't you enjoy it that's not the point I personally love this scene because with one line why are you doing this to me was so expresses a tendency that's simultaneously natural and surreal Mark's suggestion that he feels absolutely powerless is as natural as it gets he's sort of looking at himself as a physical body whose attraction to Lisa is far beyond his control what makes this scene so unnatural so completely weird is that we've been here before mark has already expressed that he doesn't want to be with Lisa but that he'll be with her anyway and he'll express that thought again the next time Lisa tries to be with him this insistence on verbatim repetition doesn't reinforce a sense of realism it distracts from it one of the most boring sets of repeated scenes are the sex scenes lisa has with mark and Johnny there are four of these scenes in the and they're all incredibly similar I mean the second Johnny sex scene repeats footage from the first one and really gives the audience the uncanny feeling that the movie is reusing itself incapable of progressing in a logical linear way but what interests me more about the sex scenes isn't related so much to repetition as it is to tonal weirdness let's look at the second sex scene where mark and Lisa have sex [Music] [Music] this scene is strange not just because we saw in almost identical Johnny Lisa sex scene around ten minutes ago but also because this choreographed montage sex scene comes at a point that should feel organic mark and Lisa are having sex for the first time there's a lot at stake it's Johnny's best friend Lisa's future husband so why does the sex scene have the same exact Cadence's as the first one this tonal dissonance contributes to the sense that the movie doesn't have a consistent internal logic that any sense of naturalism or scene development in this movie is less important than the weird scene was so wants to show us mark actually has a few of these tonally dissonance scenes but let's look at one we've already talked about a little bit on your business think you know everything you don't know [ __ ] who do you think you are you're acting like a kid just grow up kid [ __ ] you just chill out mark I'm just trying to help we're having a affair with Lisa aren't you am I wrong what what are you nuts yeah this is honestly one of the strangest scenes I've ever watched in a movie and what makes it so strange isn't just that Mark randomly starts to murder Peter but also how the camera completely commits to this tonal shift rather than staying in a safe master like most of the rest of the movie does was so cuts to this really intense low angle shot that emphasizes just how real the danger of this moment is what's more after this vaguely terrifying shot the director returns to the calm scene he was showing before where Peter immediately forgives mark and the scene just kind of moves on these tonal distances can be found everywhere in the room like look here when Mark tells Johnny a story about women being abused and he just weirdly laughs there's no a girl she had a dozen guys one of them found out about it beat her up so bad she ended up in a hospital in Carrero Street what a story mark look over here where Johnny goes from yelling that he didn't beat Lisa up to happily greeting mark it's [ __ ] I did not hit her I did not oh hi mark oh and over here where there are two separate instances where all the men are joyfully tossing around a football and Mark out of the blue knocks one of them down these constant abrupt shifts in mood these weird uses of catchphrases and these strange almost eerie emphasis on repetition all make the movies seem like the opposite of natural and this tension between natural and surreal is really at the heart of the movie so now that I've talked about how the movie leans toward both naturalism and toward complete surrealism it's time to try to connect these tendencies to the movie's plot and characters in a more direct way and in doing this the most important character to look at is Lisa because in a lot of ways I think her arc embodies the bipolar nature of the room Lisa may not be the protagonist of the film but she's certainly the character who undergoes the most change she's the center of the conflict in the movie and she's one of the strangest characters so the following is gonna sound kind of broad and over-the-top but just follow me here the world Lisa lives in is one of oppressive masculinity and materialism Lisa's future husband Johnny only shows her affection by giving her various over-the-top gifts and having weird sort of playful sexual interactions with her rather than emphasizing his qualities as a person johnny has consistently talked about in terms of his wealth his prospects of getting a promotion the security he provides her his taking care of Denny etc when Lisa talks about her unhappiness with Johnny to her mother her response always comes down to he provides for you he's due for a promotion he supports you he provides for you and darling you can't support yourself likewise Lisa is consistently understood only in terms of her attractiveness in fact almost every man she interacts with in the movie at some point describes her in terms of how beautiful she is often times when she's not in the room I have a girl she's married I mean she's very attractive just it's driving me crazy Luise looks hot tonight look at this scene where Denny confesses to having a crush on Lisa it's about Lisa go on she's beautiful she looks great in a red dress I think I'm in love with her in this scene Denny not only understands Lisa in terms of her beauty but he also specifically references the way she looks in her red dress the object that Johnny bought her at the very beginning of the movie what's so great about this scene is how it gets it the way Lisa is always understood even this seemingly innocent Steven from the film's most naive character is set in terms of the objects that define Lisa the material traces that Johnny leaves on her what's more after this confession of love or attraction Danny immediately tempers his plans in a really creepy way what about Elizabeth oh wow I love her mm-hmm when I graduate from college get a good job I want to marry her and have kids with her his immediate shift of language from his declaration of airheaded love for Lisa to a description of the absolutely average future he sees for him and his own future wife demonstrates how even the most idealistic characters see the world in terms of this oppressive normalcy and materialism when Danny wants Lisa he thinks of her in terms of the objects she wears when he thinks about his other romantic prospect he understands her in terms of the status quo world he'll build with her marriage and babies nothing in Danny's world is valued for itself it's always what that object will represent in the material world so above all Lisa's world is defined by its pragmatism and by its materialism this is the world Lisa constantly tries to work against though she does so in really strange often difficult to notice ways let's look at this scene [Applause] hurry up I have to open the door wait hang on come on in it's open I barely noticed this scene the first time I watched the movie but it's really strange isn't it mark specifically asks her to wait a second to open the door while he's getting dressed and Lisa without thinking about it opens the door disrespecting marks wishes the best way to explain her action here is to think of it as an act of rebellion against the role she takes in the lives of other characters Lisa does not want to have a quiet illicit affair with mark rather she is invested in the narrative of her affair she wants Michelle to see marks naked body because she wants her to know that she is living improperly that she's going against her loyalty to Johnny and the confining roles that others place her in another peculiar scene where Lisa rebels against society's expectations is toward the end of the movie we're expecting when is the baby due this scene demonstrates again how you can define Lisa by her desire to act against the system whatever that means by lying about her pregnancy Lisa is clearly trying to stir up trouble between mark and Johnny as both men could reasonably think they are the father Lisa's lie then can be seen as an attempt to assert agency to construct her own false narrative in order to create excitement in her mundane life explaining why she lies about her pregnancy lisa says I told them that to make it interesting and I think this line completely encapsulates Lisa's role in the movie to create tension conflict disruption to make things interesting Lisa's transgressive tendencies come to their head in a scene where she talks to Michelle everything's changed I need more from life than what Johnny can give me suddenly my eyes are wide open and I can see everything so clearly I want it all you think you can get it off mark if he can't give me what I want somebody else will this scene basically nails Lisa's anarchic tendencies to the wall as she makes it clear that more than not wanting to be with Johnny and more than wanting to be with mark Lisa wants to be free to pursue pleasure without obligation to be in charge of her own life in a way entirely divorced from obligation and economic security I love thinking about these scenes with Lisa because her conflict with other characters and with the society she lives in reflects the film's overarching conflict between realism and surrealism the characters around Lisa are obsessed with realism a realism that verges into an ideological allegiance to normalcy almost everything they do and say is rooted in the expected roles they're supposed to assume from Johnny who only wants to act as the provider for Lisa and Denny to claw dad who is obsessed with her finances and the security of her daughter to mark who blatantly doesn't love Lisa but continues to see her as some extension of masculinity to Denny who considers a life with Lisa but quickly accepts a status quo life the characters seem absolutely glued to the concrete laws of the world around them they have an aversion to seeing the world as a place to make choices based on non material desires one of the best illustrations of characters adopting this pragmatic ideology comes from Steven and Michelle in one of the final scenes this is going to pull us all down it's gonna shake up our group of friends it's gonna destroy our friendship Lisa that scenes most repeated line is you're going to ruin all of our friendships this line demonstrates how even in scenes where it seems like characters should care about the morality of an act they are more concerned with its impact on a more pragmatic level they don't care about the action being wrong they don't care about Lisa's state of mind as she did the bad thing they only care about its impact on the real world their friendships their set of relationships so if we see the other characters in the room as embodiments of the film's realistic tendencies Lisa clearly acts as the surreal bent her lies about cheating on Johnny about being pregnant her erratic behavior from opening the door before marks gotten dressed to this scene you know I love you very much where she talks to mark on the phone when Johnny is right in the other room all indicates her obsession with creating narratives with breaking away from the status quo with confounding her world of material relationships if there's a question that this video is meant to answer it's this what can we learn from the room as best as I can muster the answer is that the room is a crash course in how to make a movie and all the decisions in that movie go completely unnoticed this film does everything wrong the acting is atrocious the writing is lazy there are four lengthy sex scenes the main character is always dubbed and looks like an alien and because of all that the audience never stops to ask why are scenes constantly repeated why does Lisa lie about being pregnant why is there such an emphasis on drugs questions that if there was a better writer a better director better actors we would be forced to ask I think that once we move past thinking that the only thing this movie has to offer is funny lines and bad acting we can see a film that's fundamentally in conflict with itself on every level a movie that is incredibly dense with meaning because of and not in spite of the fact that tommy was so clearly has no idea what he's doing [Music]

Channel: Big Joel

Views: 350,842

Rating: 4.9072909 out of 5

Keywords: The Room, Video essay, analysis, review, tommy wiseau, james franco, funny, interesting, disaster artist, greg sestero, Johnny, lisa, dennny, deep dive, pop culture, what's with this movie the room, the, big joel, what's with the room, what is the room big joel, whats with this movie the room, big joel the room, nathan for you, the disaster artist, oh hi mark

Id: vmI5qqIhEtY

Length: 35min 32sec (2132 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 13 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/DeandreDoesDallas]

I assume this is like deep diving into a 1-ft pool

[u/Loro1991]

Reddit trying their hardest to stomp The Room into the ground. Gotta meme 'you're tearing me apart lisa!!' and hai doggie much as possible