LOS ANGELES — There are bad movies, and then there is “The Room,” a spectacularly bizarre independent drama from 2003 starring, written, financed and directed by Tommy Wiseau, a unique-looking and accented man of ambiguous age and origin. “The Room” tells the story of a San Francisco banker, Johnny (Wiseau), whose fiance, Lisa, and best friend, Mark, have an affair. And it is bafflingly awful — scenes are out of focus, plotlines are left dangling, soft-core sex scenes leave you cringing and the dialogue sounds downright alien.
Film critic Scott Foundas wrote at the time that the, “pic may be something of a first: A movie that prompts most of its viewers to ask for their money back — before even 30 minutes have passed.”
And yet, “The Room,” which a film professor called “the ‘Citizen Kane’ of bad movies,” took on a life of its own. It became a cult favorite of the midnight movie set, who treat it as a “Rocky Horror Picture Show”-like event (there is shouting, spoon-throwing and walk-outs). A popular book about the making of the film was co-written by Greg Sestero, who played Mark, and now a feature film about the whole ordeal, “The Disaster Artist,” was directed by and stars James Franco as Wiseau. It hits theaters in limited release Friday and expands Dec. 8.
But as easy of a target as “The Room” might be, “The Disaster Artist” is not a spoof or a parody — it is a sincerely told (and incidentally very fun and funny) story about two outsiders, Sestero and Wiseau, who move to Los Angeles with dreams of stardom and no idea how to realize them.