The Room (2003) is a film which has gone down in legend—it’s the “Citizen Kane of bad movies” as the now famous quote goes. Only the likes of the absurd Samurai Cop (1991) can dare challenge its crown.

An independent American film funded entirely by eccentric, enigmatic, strangely wealthy European export Tommy Wiseau, in the internet era The Room is a sensation.

There are annual (in fact, monthly) celebrations of it across the world with adoring fans getting in character to celebrate one of the worst films of all time. Oh, joy!

Insights Into The Room’s Production in The Disaster Artist (2013, book!)

Greg Sestero, a budding young actor in the early 2000s, through a fortuitous set of circumstances found himself starring as one of the lead characters—Mark.

Working with author Tom Bissell a decade later, he helped put the Disaster Artist together for publication in 2013 based on his memories of the film shoot.

The result is a quite fabulous account of one eccentric individual’s bizarre, delusional belief his project was anything but a disaster—in fact, in 2003, he was sure it would be the greatest film ever made.

Now, Sestero is one of those ridiculously good looking blokes you have to presume is going to be a complete git as he’s had everything his own way, but in reality comes across as personable, self-deprecating, and charming—even insecure.

Having modelled in his late teens in Italy he, with a genuine passion for culture, began attempting to forge a career in Hollywood.

Tellingly, he was stunned to find Jack Nicholson waded through over 350 audition failures before landing his breakout role.

This is acting. It’s an unbelievably brutal business. Despite this, Sestero managed to get small parts in big production films, including working with Robin Williams on one of his less popular works—Patch Adams.

Taking up acting classes in 1998 to support his dreams, he wound up in the same class as the hopelessly untalented, but intensely mercurial and weird, Tommy Wiseau, one of the most eccentric individuals to have lived in the last 100 years.

The pair form an unusual friendship (they’re still good mates) and, several years down the road, it led to one of the most celebrated cult films in history.

About 2003’s “Best Bad Film” Romp The Room

Wiseau (whose source of immense wealth remains a mystery, with the likelihood he inherited it at some point in his life) wrote the film and funded it to the tune of $6 million.

Along the way, he made an endless series of increasingly bizarre decisions as his eccentricity swept way ahead of him like a bloody tidal wave of creative mayhem—it simply couldn’t be curtailed.

What the Disaster Artist does is detail, or attempt to explain, Wiseau and all of those:

• Strange inconsistencies.
• Continuity errors.
• Surreal settings.
• Inexplicable dialogue (which the writer and director came up with).

Sestero claims it took 37 takes to get some scenes. Wiseau has contested his depiction as only 40% accurate and challenged Sestero’s assertion.

To be clear, there’s no bad blood between them and they’re still good friends.

For the record, Wiseau is also now claiming the film is a black comedy, although the project seems more likely to have been born out of a personal issue in his life he was trying to spin into a Shakespearean tragedy.

Whatever, to his credit he’s been very forthcoming with fans and celebrates the fact the film has brought a lot of joy to people.

The Disaster Artist has done the same, allowing fans an inside look at what happened during production. It’s a book bristling with self-deprecation, humour, wit, and intrigue and we enjoyed it a great deal.

If you’re looking for some light-hearted, fun literature, then this is the one for you. Of course, you’ll also have to take the plunge sooner or later and watch the Room—it’s available for free on YouTube. Are you brave enough?

And Then There Was The Disaster Artist as a 2017 Film Adaptation

Celebrity fans of the film include such luminaries as Zac Efron, Sharon Stone, Bryan Cranston, James Franco, and Seth Rogen.

The latter two, working with Sestero, has adapted the book into a film set for release in December 2017.

We’re not exactly massive fans of Rogen’s work (Franco has done some great stuff, mind), but find him amiable enough so we’ll probably give this a whirl. You do, too, if you’re keen.

On a final note, as we’re not going to do a post reviewing the Room (there are plenty online which have covered it extensively already), our first viewing experience of it was as follows: boredom.

It is a boring film, but something sticks with you for days afterward—whether it’s a certain way one line is said or the peculiar use of green screen, you feel compelled to head back in and try and work out what’s going on.

From our perspective, although some of the more celebrated lines get the most attention (“You are tearing me apart, Lisa!”), the most bizarre parts are the strangely protracted, gratuitous, and confusing sex scenes.

There are about five of them and they drag on for bloody ages and include disconcerting chuckling and cheesy music.

During editing, Wiseau had to splice sections of the first one into others as actress Juliette Danielle refused to do any more nude scenes with him.

Anyway, it’s certainly a terrible film but we’re always delighted when something like this is taken by fans and morphed into an international sensation.

The Room is definitely just that and the Disaster Artist is set to give it another new lease of life for one of the most unlikely Hollywood success stories in history. Lovely.