For the life of me, I can’t explain why the idea of being messy is much more interesting than being perfect. Oh sure, I love art that conveys what it wants to say effectively and clearly, but every now and then I’m drawn to something that maybe misses a beat. It could be something as simple as a continuity error, and I’ll love having to work my imagination into believing that it symbolizes something greater. I don’t try to watch bad movies because they’re awful, but I am more enamored with the idea of what their true intentions were. More often than not, the person who finishes last has a story to share for what went wrong, and it’s genuinely what makes The Room (2003) such a fascinating artifact.
On the surface, you’re likely to agree that a lot is wrong with director Tommy Wiseau’s vision. The green screen is choppy at times, the audio isn’t dubbed properly in others, while the story finds Wiseau’s acting to be ridiculous. He is someone who doesn’t strike me as having a lot of cinematic experience, and yet has this passion to put tape over the holes and sell you something he believes to be flawless. In this case, I see The Room as his take on Tennessee Williams: a campy drama full of sexual deceit and trust issues. While at best you might have to squint to see how this at all was inspired by something like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, I do believe that the melodrama is there. It explains why he thinks the eroticism is necessary, why everything feels like it’s life and death as he yells “You’re tearing me apart, Lisa!”
But again, I don’t watch it to ridicule. I don’t have the heart to watch bad art that is just that. I suppose it comes with being a writer myself and understanding what the effort to make anything work is like. I’ve released a lot of garbage in my life that could’ve been much better, and you can’t just look at it with embarrassment. You have to ask why you think it’s bad and grow from there. You see, I want to see everything through a constructive lens, and when I can’t it creates a sadness in me, recognizing how futile certain projects ended up being. The Room, on some level, is very futile. However, there’s way too much passion in the ideas to write it off entirely.
That is what makes Greg Sestero’s memoir “The Disaster Artist” somewhat essential as a filmmaking book. While the mythos of Wiseau grew organically from his mysterious background, there is something about finding his compassionate co-star writing about how they met and made one of the best worst movies ever made. What follows is just as wild as you’d expect, maybe even helping to paint Wiseau as more of an egocentric. Like the rest of us, Sestero just wants to know who this man is and why he’s so eager to make art. Sure, nobody really knows where Wiseau got the money, how old he was, or what country he was even from. He just seemed so in love with the idea of making a movie that, following its completion, he bought a billboard in Hollywood to promote screen bookings.
But I suppose what makes the story more fulfilling is that it can be read as either tragedy or triumph. To read the former is how most likely view The Room in a cultural sense. Here’s Sestero, an actor who moved to Southern California for that familiar dream of being a great actor. It’s a tale as old as time. Over the early pages, he struggles to land auditions and desperately tries to do any gig that will get him a shot. By the time he meets Wiseau, he accepts almost due to a lack of other options. He will do this movie, if just because he believes in the enthusiasm of the director’s vision.
Sure, he’s critical of Wiseau every step of the way. However, it’s that desire to make art that drives the story, eventually pivoting into the actual creation of the film. As you can guess, Wiseau is not the most adept at planning or even operating a set. There are endless problems, plenty of walk-offs, and a lot of petty arguments tied to misogyny. Sestero’s patience is impeccable as he tries to make the film work, even as his character randomly has to shave his beard. It doesn’t build character but, in a sad piece of irony, this decision keeps Sestero from landing another gig, an opportunity to escape this shadow.
To see “The Disaster Artist” as a tragedy is to suggest that Sestero’s career was forever ruined by The Room, that he never got work again and he’s probably bussing tables somewhere. It’s true that he maybe never became a top-notch actor, but he still had a role in The Haunting of Bly Manor this year, so he is working. It’s the comfortable living every actor wants, even if you could imagine how many greater opportunities he could’ve had if he didn’t star in The Room. In some ways, his dreams have been diminished by one project, though that’s to ignore the part that reads it as a triumph.
Prior to the pandemic, one of the most popular Midnight Movies was The Room. With Wiseau sometimes appearing in person, fans would gather to perform a series of rituals that included shouting lines at the screen and throwing spoons. There’s a whole cult around it that has felt vital to film history, uniting people over a shared love of something that’s maybe a bit too indecipherable. The closer you look, the less sense it makes. And yet, you love it for how it strikes that weird tone, of something a perfectionist would never be able to achieve.
After all, there have been hundreds of bad movies since The Room that have come and gone. A lot of them would make you scratch your head, not even aware that they used to exist. Some were made for cynical reasons, i.e. money, and sacrificed an ounce of passion. Others were bad at even bad marketing and never captured the audiences’ attention. While there are those who will obsess over them and discuss their merits, the general attention towards them is small. If Sestero had to get stuck with any bad movie, he lucked out.
Because the triumph of The Room is something that cannot be manufactured intentionally. I cringe at the idea of someone setting out to make an “intentionally” bad movie because it always feels forced. It has to come organically, and that’s what Wiseau did. He set out to create this captivating drama about a man finding his world falling apart on his birthday. The wide-eyed optimism in Wiseau’s delivery never feels sincere, but in the way that most people who never took an acting class would do it. They believe that they’re Shakespearian, that their ideas are profound, and that they have natural energy. Sometimes it’s fun to just get caught up in their mood and realize that they’re not wrong. Nobody acts like that, and it makes them singular.
Though the question is, who would ever hire Wiseau for a major role? He’s even more of an outcast than Sestero, and yet there’s this passion inside of him. He has the drive of a working actor, and unlike most of them he lives up to the misunderstood demeanor. Sestero’s affection for him is like that of a roommate, enjoying him for the most part but not wanting to deal with him on those days where he seems to be way too insufferable, getting hung up on certain details. And, unlike Sestero, he’s not exactly the most photogenic actor in the group. He has a bigger mountain to climb, and The Room feels astounding as a result, created mostly on the fly with rolls of tape barely holding together whatever problems he can find.
Which goes back to my original point. I love “The Disaster Artist” as a book because of what it demystifies. This isn’t some shyster just trying to make a halfhearted attempt. This is a beginner who doesn’t know better shooting beyond their capabilities. Like his acting, everything feels spontaneous. No beat feels right and the camera maybe pans a bit too early. It defies the logic of cinema’s language, and you can’t help but admire it. There’s no cynicism in these decisions. It’s just friends making a movie and trusting someone who maybe doesn’t understand his story all that well either. If nothing else, he sure doesn’t know how football is played.
And yet there’s this bond of two outsiders who want to make it in this business, who have felt rejected by various major institutions. It’s the hope that they’ll pull through. Wiseau may be closer to a cartoon character, but he still has this genuine heart that is at times charming. He stumbled his way into success with The Room, forever cementing him as a very specific personality type. He’s continually popped up in the decade since playing some form of eccentric, and it’s always a delight. Even if he never directs another film, one can argue that he won the game of life hand over fist.
I’m reminded of when I saw a special screening of The Room a few years back. While it wasn’t the full experience (for one, it wasn’t in Hollywood at midnight), there was definitely an ambiance in the room. There was anticipation when every major line came up. It was wonderful because nobody was there to mock it. We were all there to enjoy Wiseau getting distracted by a dog. What made the experience all the crazier was that prior to the film, they programmed an ad for his merch store that sold things like underwear (which, as far as I can tell, had little authenticity). With fire effects and generic metal playing, the text would read things like “If you doubted Tommy, SHAME ON YOU!”
Was it a joke? Was he being sincere? The answer was somewhere in between. Considering that Wiseau claims that he shot The Room as a drama but later suggested that it was always a comedy, it’s easy to see him just having fun with this experience. He’s just messing with anyone who is willing to listen. The fact that it brought forth a rather entertaining Oscar-nominated feature in the deal only proved that his art spoke to people. After years of being told that he didn’t matter, he stood on that stage at The Golden Globes and saw people admire his work with trophies.
In closing, I wouldn’t exactly say that I’m a die-hard obsessive about The Room. If anything, I’m sympathetic towards it, finding myself once again editing out any of the flaws in hopes of finding a greater movie. There are times where it becomes overbearing and I just laugh. I recognize a part of my own failures as a writer in Wiseau, when a line read may seem a bit too inappropriate. I wouldn’t say it’s great art, but it speaks to our desire to make something that matters in the first place. The Room is sincerely trying to be that, and you feel like laughing when it comes up short… every single time.
It’s the belief that art doesn’t have to be great for it to matter. There are times when sometimes all it takes is believing in one’s self. Not everyone will make “The Great Gatsby.” It’s the unfortunate side effect of being human. At best, we can try to make what we think is that. Art is a vulnerable thing to release into the world, and the worse it is the harder it may sometimes be to take criticism. At the end of the day, “The Disaster Artist” is the best outcome you could hope for. It’s not perfect, but everyone admires it for trying in the first place.
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