The Room Analysis: Part Five

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The scene begins with Lisa and Michelle hanging out in Lisa’s apartment, drinking some glasses of wine as they share girly talk. Seriously, does anyone besides Johnny have a job in this movie? However, there are a few important nuggets of information that we glean from this scene. Even though it’s never stated out loud, we learn that Michelle is Lisa’s best friend. We also learn that Lisa is sticking to her lie about Johnny hitting her, and Michelle has a much more believable reaction when she is told, seeming to be genuinely surprised and appalled by such a thing, as well as expressing concern for Lisa’s wellbeing. I guess there are some instances of good writing in this film after all, but it’s like finding a pinch of gold dust in a dry river. You can easily miss it, and it’s not worth much anyhow.

In this same scene, Lisa also reveals to Michelle that she’s seeing someone else. Again, Michelle has a pretty realistic reaction to this revelation, then asks who the other guy is. Lisa clearly thinks she’s being sly and obscure when she only says that it’s Johnny’s best friend, who lives in the same apartment building. It doesn’t take the combined brainpower of Holmes, Poirot and Layton to figure this one out, but Michelle still acts like she’s only guessing when she says that it’s Mark. And it’s not because she was written as being coy about the topic. She’s supposed to actually be unsure. Michelle then keeps trying to play Jiminy Cricket by appealing to Lisa’s conscience. Lisa keeps saying that she’s in love with Mark and has no feelings for Johnny, and swears Michelle to secrecy, which Michelle agrees to.

This has nothing to do with the story, but during that entire scene with those two, Lisa has this strange, vibrating tendon in her neck that keeps bulging up and down like there’s a xenomorph larva living in there.

Just as Michelle is agreeing to be complicit with Lisa’s adultery, Johnny comes home. And even though he had just arrived, he claims that he had heard them talking. Alright, so there’s no conceivable way that Johnny could have heard her. Especially not when he only walked through the door after Michelle finished speaking. But the scene carries on with Lisa forcefully insisting that it was just girl talk. And even though neither woman is wearing one, Johnny asks if they got a new dress. Michelle takes that as her cue to leave, allowing Johnny and Lisa to be alone together. But Michelle still sees fit to tell Lisa to consider her advice, even though the affair with Mark is supposed to be on the down low.

One thing that I forgot to mention, but it’s pretty prominent in this scene, is that Johnny and Lisa’s apartment is filled with framed pictures of spoons. ‘Why?’ you may ask. That’s because they were bought to fill out each background with a bit of decoration, but nobody bothered to change the stock pictures that were already framed. That’s all there is. No deep symbolism or metaphor, or anything. Just pure, unabashed laziness.

Getting back to the movie, things go pretty wrong when Johnny persists on knowing what Lisa and Michelle were talking about, and then abruptly confronts Lisa about how he never hit her. And he does this after apparently a few days have passed since that time he littered on the roof during his fit of rage. Most of all, he tells Lisa that she should never keep any secrets from him, because he is her ‘future husband.’

Another quick aside here. The words ‘fiancé’ or ‘fiancée’ are never used in this film. This is because Wiseau insisted that all of the dialogue be spoken in English. In fact, the man who plays Mark was raised by French immigrants, and during one scene he improvised a line by using a French expression. Wiseau was so offended that he tackled Mark’s actor and yelled at him to only speak English.

After Johnny practically says that he owns Lisa, Lisa lets slip that she may not want to marry Johnny anymore, and tries to leave the room. Big mistake.

Johnny rages, “Hauw daryoo tawk too me lahk thaaaht!” and pushes Lisa back onto the couch. Oh, yeah. We’re starting to believe that given the right circumstances, Johnny could have hit her. He then rambles on in what is supposed to be a heartfelt monologue, but he instead comes off as a whiny, codependent bitch. He even butchers James Dean’s famous line in ‘Rebel Without a Cause’ by shouting, “Yoor teareeng me apawrt, Leeza!!!” Naturally, Lisa is scared by Johnny’s behavior and tries to leave again, only for Johnny to push her back onto the couch once more. And then he asks Lisa if she understands life. Given the context of the situation, that sounds like a death threat.

Lisa is finally able to get away from Johnny, but leaves pretty casually, considering the fiery nature of their argument. They both tell each other not to worry about it and bid their goodnights, before the scene ends.

We get a shot of the Golden Gate Bridge again, before we cut to Johnny in a poorly constructed alleyway set. Why he is in this alley, nobody knows. But he seems to be walking toward a window, until Mike hails him from offscreen. Apparently these two know each other. And Mike has come to convey what he calls a tragedy to Johnny. And over the course of the next minute, Mike very awkwardly relates the story of how Claudette found his underwear from earlier in the movie. He even channels his inner pirate by referring to the garment in question as, “Me underwears.” By the time he’s done, all Johnny tells him is, “Thah’z la-ife.”

Let’s discuss what a tragedy is. It is a story in which the lead character experiences a downfall or reversal of fortunes that defeats them in the end. A friend of mine taught me a new word as I was editing for her, ‘hamartia,’ which is defined as a flaw or mistake that leads to a character’s downfall. Mike is the lead character in his personal tragedy. His hamartia is his forgetfulness. He forgot his underwear, and wanted to go retrieve it. His other hamartia is that he’s stupid, and fails to get it discreetly. The reversal of fortune happens when Claudette snatches Mike’s underwear from him, thus ruining his plans to save himself the embarrassment.

In only the most minor sense of the word, yes, Mike does experience a tragedy. But that’s only if you stretch the definition so thin that you can see literary critics shamefully shaking their heads at you through the other side of it.

Back to the movie, Mike has finished his story, and Denny arrives with a football in his hands. He wants to play some catch, but Mike says that he is late for an appointment to make out with Michelle. Both times that we’ve seen this guy, he only has sex on his mind. The only thing that saves him from being as undeveloped as Denny is that he has some semblance of a personality. But he gets talked into a game of catch, and the three guys languidly toss the ball to one another as words just kind of dribble out of their mouths.

Mark arrives, and he wants to play too. Denny fills Mark in on Mike’s underwear story, even though he wasn’t there to hear about it. In an unintentionally humorous moment, Mark asks, “Underwear? What’s that?” And the moment after he asks that, he very forcefully pushes Mike into some garbage cans. It’s treated like an accident by the other characters, but it was very clearly done deliberately. Mark helps Mike up, then escorts him home. Johnny then beseeches Denny that they go home as well. And that’s it. That entire scene could have been cut out with no consequence to the film.

Cut to Lisa and Claudette entering Lisa and Johnny’s apartment, and Claudette talks about how little sleep she got last night. It turns out that one of Claudette’s friends had talked to Johnny about getting a down payment on a new house, but Johnny couldn’t help her. The topic then turns to Lisa’s relationship with Johnny, where Lisa admits to having sex with someone else, who she doesn’t name. Whether she names him or not, why would she discuss her sex life with her mother? For Pete’s sake, how is that a healthy family relationship!? One could say that this is why Lisa turned out the way that she did, but it’s again done unintentionally.

But what’s this? Johnny’s already home, and he’s eavesdropping from the top of the stairs. Ooh! Intrigue! What a twist! We also know that this is at a later date from when he was playing football in the alley, because his clothes are different.

Claudette asks who the other man is, but Lisa says that she doesn’t want to talk about it. Once more, Claudette asks what we’re all thinking when she says, “Then why did you bring it up in the first place?” And just as she says something that makes sense, she baffles us by admonishing Lisa, “If you think I’m tired today, wait ‘til you see me tomorrow!” What the living hell does that mean? A few more words are exchanged about if Claudette is coming to the birthday party, and the two of them leave without doing anything at all. They didn’t collect anything from the apartment. They didn’t put out drinks. They didn’t turn on the TV to watch a show. Nothing. They literally just walked into the apartment to have a short dialogue about Lisa’s affair, then left, accomplishing nothing of any objective merit.

But what about Johnny? He was listening the whole time! At this point, he already knows that Lisa is seeing another man, but he declares out loud to himself, “I showww them! I w’ll ree-chord evfrytheeng!” Start humming the theme music from ‘Mission: Impossible,’ as we get an overly long and awkward scene of Johnny clumsily attaching a tape recorder to the phone. We’re supposed to think that he’s some kind of genius of espionage, but there are a lot of extra wires from the tape recorder exposed, and the phone has obviously been moved from one side of the table to the other. We also learn that Johnny just happens to carry blank tapes in his shirt pocket, as he produces one to load into the recorder.

The deed is done, and Johnny returns upstairs. With that, this segment of the movie is over.

More and more, the movie just seems to be about what a good person Johnny is and how evil Lisa is. We get more of a schism between them, as Johnny seems more saintly and Lisa becomes more diabolical. The major problem with that is we don’t really get any actual motivations for why Lisa is doing what she is doing. Nor do we yet see any real instances of Johnny’s goodness. Wiseau tries really hard to make Johnny seem like a good guy, but fails miserably.

Johnny’s philosophical question about if Lisa understands life is meant to further the idea that not only is he a good person, but he is also deep and sagacious. However, the context in which he asks it has no bearing on anything, and he would seem more meaningful if he had already mused about his understanding of life. His conversation with Mike is also supposed to further this notion, as he summarizes Mike’s ‘tragedy’ by telling him, ‘That’s life.’ 

We do get to see a different side of Johnny, where he proves that he has the capacity for violence against Lisa when he pushes her down twice. This could work in a better movie, but we’re still supposed to think that Johnny is a good Samaritan who can do no wrong to anybody. That he’s still just a good person in a rotten world that’s beating him down. What Wiseau doesn’t seem to realize is that in that scene, Johnny had just engaged in actual physical violence against Lisa, and would only build her case about the idea that Johnny could have hit her.

One more way that my friends and I have talked about to fix this movie is more adjustments to Johnny’s character. We’ve already discussed how Johnny could be a workaholic, which leaves Lisa feeling alone and lonely even when he’s around, but what about everything else? What if Johnny didn’t get his promotion because he didn’t have the skills or work ethic to handle the responsibilities that it would grant him? How about if we see him lose his temper at his friends once or twice? What if this isn’t the first time that Johnny has pushed Lisa down, and he has a history of violent behavior? Scary thought, isn’t it?

This has been fun, but I have to get on with my life. I’ll be purging the badness of this movie with the goodness of another one. I think tonight, I’ll finally do what I’ve been meaning to do since I was a little kid and watch ‘Akira.’