The Room Analysis: Part Three

00:20:31-00:29:21

Ah, the streets of San Francisco. Haven’t we seen enough of them in wide shots already? We’d like to think so, but Wiseau didn’t. But by the grace of Tommy, it doesn’t last very long, and we then cut to Johnny entering a flower shop. This scene in particular is considered to be the most pointless and absurd one in the entire movie by people who have analyzed ‘The Room’ more thoroughly than myself. And I would be inclined to agree with them. Here’s how the script goes from the moment Johnny walks into the store.

Johnny: Hai!
Florist: Can I help you?
Johnny: Yeh, can I hahv a duzzen red rosess, plees?
Florist: Oh, hi, Johnny. I didn’t know it was you. Here you go.
Johnny: Thaht’z mee. Howmuch izzit?
Florist: That’ll be eighteen dollars.
Johnny: Heeryoo gooo. Keep the chaynj. Hai doggee!
Florist: You’re my favorite customer.
Johnny: Thaynksalott. Baiiii!
Florist: Buh-bye!

That’s fifteen perfectly good seconds wasted on this dump of word vomit that could have been committed to a more interesting part of the story. In case you were wondering, that part where Johnny greets a dog happens because there is an extraordinarily old pug sitting on the counter at the flower shop that just kind of sits there like a statue. But this scene leads us to wonder a few other things, like how often Johnny goes to this place. Does he stop by often to buy flowers for Lisa? What makes him the favorite customer when it seems like every interaction is a garbled whirlwind of incredibly curt verbal exchanges, like a bout of boxing with words? And why did the florist not know that it was Johnny who walked in? From the look of things, she was watching the front door when Johnny arrived. And if you’ve never seen the movie, Johnny has a very distinct look about him. And that’s putting it mildly.

The scene cuts to Lisa in their apartment, and she’s ordering a pizza. And what a strange order it is. Half Canadian bacon with pineapple, and half artichoke with pesto. Oh, and light on the cheese. Clearly, Lisa is watching her figure.

Let’s take a moment to talk about that order of pizza. When you are making a half-and-half pizza, you make sure that the ingredients on each half complement one another so that it doesn’t taste too funky when it all gets baked together. Believe it or not, the juices of each ingredient can seep over into one another’s territory, creating a mush of artichoke that tastes like pineapple. And that is not a good combination. Come to think of it, pesto sauce usually has an oil base, which makes it even more likely to intrude with the other ingredients. I have made my own pizza since I was a teenager, so I know a thing or two about it. This particular order would be a nightmare to eat for its oleaginous texture and nebulous mix of clashing flavors.

Well, anyway, Lisa hangs up on what the guys at the pizza place must surely think is a crank call, and the doorbell rings. It’s Denny. He wants to know what’s new, and Lisa tells him that she’s really busy, just before offering him something to drink. Okay, how busy can she be when she found the time to order a pizza in the late afternoon, and then prolongs Denny’s stay by offering him something to drink? Maybe she plans to seduce him too? Jeez, I hope not. Denny declines the drink anyway, and states that he just came by to talk to Johnny. And he does so by looking everywhere but at Lisa, like he’s casing the apartment to rob it later. But then, completely out of nowhere, Denny comments how beautiful Lisa looks, and asks to kiss her. I guess Denny does this a lot, because Lisa laughs him off and calls him a little brat. But Denny says that he was just joking, so that makes it okay. Lisa reveals that Johnny will be coming home in a few minutes, so Denny can wait around for him if he wants to. Denny then decides that he doesn’t want to talk to Johnny after all, and backpedals out of the scene. I mean that literally. He actually walks backwards out the open door. Bizarre, isn’t it?

Cut forward to Johnny coming home, and Lisa is sitting on the couch waiting for him again. Except this time, she’s reading a book, which she promptly puts down with a sunny smile on her face the moment she sees her future husband walk inside.

The moment he walks in, Johnny seems to be in a sullen mood, even as he offers Lisa the flowers that he bought earlier. It seems that the only reason that scene was shown was to explain where Johnny got the flowers. However, that scene could have been completely cut out, and we could have assumed that Johnny had stopped by the shop on his way home. Just like how we never actually saw Johnny buying that red dress from the beginning of the film.

Lisa accepts the flowers and kisses Johnny hello. Then she asks if Johnny got his promotion at work.

“Nah,” Johnny answers.

There is a pregnant pause as Lisa’s deductive powers are put to their ultimate test. You can practically see the gears grinding behind her suspiciously narrowing eyes. She scowls thoughtfully as she works on a riddle that is worthy of the great detective minds of Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot and Professor Layton. And as Lisa sits down to put the flowers in a vase, she concludes, “You didn’t get it, did you?”

Better call Mensa. Lisa figured that one out pretty quick.

It turns out that Johnny works at a bank, and he has implemented ideas that have made the work there more efficient and profitable than ever before. But despite Johnny’s fiduciary and financial genius, he is treated as a work mule by his bosses, who don’t give him the respect and recognition that he deserves. Despite how she said that she doesn’t love him anymore, Lisa says that she still loves Johnny. And Johnny agrees that she is the only one who does. This contradicts how he seems to be on such good terms with Denny, his best friend, Mark, and the nameless woman from the flower shop. And Lisa points this out, saying that Johnny has friends. She then laments how she got no calls, and that the computer business is too competitive. What computer business? Is this what she does for a living? How? What facet of computer business is she involved in? Does she fix them? Sell them? Program them? Or does she work from home on a laptop? Whatever. That’s all the information that we’ll ever get about it in this movie, because Lisa asks if Johnny wants to order a pizza. Johnny seems indifferent, but perks up when Lisa reveals that she already did.

This scene doesn’t really work, because we don’t know how much Johnny likes pizza. Even just a quick comment or a proverb that Johnny makes up on the spot about how he believes that pizza can solve any heartache. But that would be good dialogue, which never even gave this movie a polite wave.

Lisa’s insidious nature begins to creep up again as she offers Johnny a drink. Johnny claims that he doesn’t drink, but the scene fades to Lisa entering the room with two shot glasses and a bottle of what appears to be vodka (which is either clear or pink), even though the drinks in the glasses are colored amber, like scotch. It seems that the pizza that Lisa ordered had also arrived in the time that she went to get the drinks, and we see that it is a plain cheese pizza. Seems that the pizza guys thought it was a crank call after all.

Johnny tries to abstain from drinking the alcoholic beverage, but Lisa keeps trying to tempt him. She even goes so far as to say, “If you love me, you’ll drink this.” That’s usually a good sign that you’re in a manipulative relationship. But Johnny is a stupid and naive man, so he gives in to this high school style peer pressure like a nerd being teased by a cheerleader. Fade to a later point where Johnny and Lisa have gotten so drunk that Johnny is laughing half-heartedly as Lisa wears Johnny’s tie around her forehead. Couple of real party animals, these two.

The temptations from Lisa are not over yet. She implores Johnny for sex. Johnny declines, probably because they’re both drunk, but Lisa keeps up her manipulations by telling Johnny that she owes him one. Didn’t she say this to Mark earlier? What does Johnny owe her for? The pizza? I’m pretty sure in some states that qualifies as prostitution. Then we cut to the third sex scene before we’re even a half hour into the film. Mercifully, it’s much shorter than the previous two. Although it does use recycled footage from the first one.

Scene cuts to a later date where Lisa is organizing Johnny’s upcoming surprise birthday party with her mother. Claudette agrees to come, but then seems to remember that her brother, Harold, has been pestering her for a share of her house. She then announces that she has breast cancer. This is something that you think would be huge, but Lisa very casually dismisses it by saying that people get cured of cancer every day. And that’s literally all that is said about that incredible bombshell of a revelation. Even Claudette seems to forget, because she goes on about an ex-husband of hers all of a sudden. Are we supposed to believe that she’s been married multiple times, or is this Lisa’s father that she’s talking about? Whatever the case, Claudette tells Lisa that she has a good man in Johnny.

It’s time for Lisa’s duplicitous ways to shine. She tells her mother that Johnny didn’t get his promotion. And then that he got drunk. And then that he hit her.

Those three things are all pretty serious. But Claudette seems to fixate on the part about Johnny getting drunk, because even though she was just told that her daughter was hit by a man in a drunken rage over a failed promotion, she answers, “Johnny doesn’t drink!”

Think. If you had a daughter, and she told you that her honey got drunk and hit her, what would you say? Of course, you’d be inclined to believe what your daughter tells you. But if she didn’t have a single bruise or bump on her (like Lisa), you might question if she was hit at all. And even though Johnny is being painted as an abusive drunk who isn’t really all that successful, Claudette tells Lisa to stay with Johnny for financial security. Real nice, huh? Lisa then hurriedly dismisses her mother by saying that she needs to meet a client. It would have been nice to see her making that appointment. Perhaps it would be more interesting if it was just a ruse to meet up with Mark again. Also, didn’t Lisa say that she never gets any calls from clients? Or was that just another lie? Who knows? Who cares?

And that wraps up this ten minute section. Let’s talk a little bit more about what went on here, shall we?

The scene at the flower shop is like some kind of event horizon. As soon as we cross that line, the entire rest of the movie becomes a jumbled mess where nothing that happens from now up until the end has any effect on the story. If anything, it’s just to show us what a good person Johnny is. We’re led to believe by his rapport with the clerk that he is friends with her, even though we never see her again in the rest of the movie. Also, Johnny telling the florist to keep the change is supposed to make us think that he is a kind and generous soul.

The whole part of Johnny ranting about how much the people at work suck is supposed to make us sympathize with him. We all have bosses that we hate, or have had such bosses. And now we’re supposed to believe that only bad things happen to Johnny, even though he’s such a good person. To his credit, Johnny hasn’t done anything to make us think that he is a bad person. However, he hasn’t done anything to make himself seem like the saint we’re supposed to perceive him as, either.

Besides ‘Citizen Kane,’ Wiseau has also cited ‘The Talented Mr. Ripley’ as one of the major influences of ‘The Room.’ In fact, the character, Mark, is named after the lead actor of that film, whose name Wiseau misheard and never bothered to learn. (The lead in Mr. Ripley is Matt Damon, by the way). Anyway, the titular character of that film is somebody who is a complete sham and a fraud who pathologically lies his way through life, and resorts to even murder in order to keep up his lavish lifestyle, all the while remaining above suspicion through skillful deceit. Lisa is clearly supposed to be a manipulator on the same par as Tom Ripley. But she never comes off as such. In order for her lie about Johnny hitting her to work, it would be more convincing if she had some kind of mark on her. This could lead to a very disturbing scene of Lisa giving herself the injuries that she would need to sell her lie.

Let’s try to fix this movie again. Let’s say that Johnny comes home looking dejected, and Lisa actually deduces that he didn’t get his promotion without asking him. She wants to help her fiancé, but he still seems distant and leaves to go play football with Denny. Frustrated by Johnny’s detached behavior, she pounds her fist on the coffee table, but accidentally pounds one of the glasses that she set out for the two of them to drink. Bleeding and alone in her apartment, she goes to the phone and calls Mark for help as she takes care of her wounds. Later, when her mother asks why her hand is bandaged, Lisa lies and says that Johnny did it, only because she’s still mad at him. Doesn’t all of that sound like a better movie?

Denny again makes himself irrelevant to anything that is going on in this movie by proving that there was no actual plan for him. He wants to talk to Johnny, but he never says what about. Then he decides that he doesn’t want to talk to Johnny and leaves. This interaction takes a little bit less than a minute to elapse. As it turns out, in the original drafts of the script, Denny was supposed to be Lisa’s younger brother. While it doesn’t necessarily justify his role in the story, it does justify his existence in the movie. But in the final draft, he was just some kid who comes by the apartment every now and then to conduct himself inappropriately.

That’s it for this entry. See you again in the next one. I’m going to watch ‘The Beekeeper’ tonight. And I’m going to watch it over a plate of some infinitely superior homemade pizza!