The Room 20th Anniversary Retrospective

Unintentional comedy gold never felt this funny, especially with a cast member in attendance.

Where to start with a film as infamous as 2003’s ‘The Room’? A film widely renowned for being both one of the worst films ever made and the ultimate ‘so bad it’s good’ film, where everything feels wrong from the moment it starts. What’s undeniable is that The Room is unforgettable, and even as recently as a 20th-anniversary showing with a cast member in attendance, facts revolving around the film continue to surprise.

For anyone unfamiliar with this film, The Room is a ‘romantic drama’ written and directed by Tommy Wiseau, revolving around a love triangle between Wiseau’s Johnny, his fiancée Lisa, and best friend Mark (played by Greg Sestero, whose memoir about the making of this film was adapted into a film in 2017). To say this film is special would be to undersell it. According to Sestero, who attended the Duke of York’s Picturehouse showing of this film, “You have that turnaround where people see that it's tragic and dramatic, people will be crying and moved by it, but then you flip it and they are moved by it, just by how funny and ridiculous it is, I don’t know how you can pull that off. You’re talking about a movie that over 20 years later still brings people of all ages to tears with laughter.”

Sestero remains bemused to this day on how the film gained the cult following it has today. He said: “It’s baffling it caught traction because this movie has no demographic, no names, the first 15 minutes are a chore to survive through, you’re watching the most terrifying softcore porn film. The reactions at the premiere got a lot of laughs, but I thought that was the extent of it. I was never embarrassed about it because of my connection with Tommy, and I never took it seriously in the professional sense. It was a movie cheered on by the people versus an industry film, so it was a win-win for me because I didn’t think we’d go anywhere after that, it’s been a very fascinating Hollywood experiment.”

Tommy Wiseau has always been regarded as bizarre, and Sestero’s comments did nothing to disprove that mindset. From telling a cast member “Denny when you hold apple, this is like Bible. You need to eat apple like you’re a sexual sinner.” to Sestero reading a scene from the film’s original script using audience members, saying: “It’s unfiltered, unedited, straight from Tommy’s brain." to Tommy referring to The Disaster Artist as “the red bible”, everything that is known about this man ranges from bizarre to insane. When you have dialogue like “I like how you put your sexy hands around my body” in the original script and is referred to by Sestero as “AI before AI”, then you’ve stood out for all the wrong reasons in the best manner possible.

The Q&A concludes with a quote from Sestero that sums up The Room’s madness. As Sestero said: “The actor who played Mark was cast last-minute, he played along, and Tommy believed that that was his legit acting, and he just totally went for it. That actor is now an FBI agent, if that doesn’t make you more worried about the United States, then I don’t know what to say.”