I must admit I've never seen "The Room", Tommy Wiseau's entry into the "worst movie ever" sweepstakes, although I have seen enough youtube clips and read enough thinkpieces to agree that it's certainly got wretched writing and performances enough to make for a shambolic production. James Franco film tells the backstage story of how it got made - and provides a portrait of Wiseau, a genuinely odd fellow whose secretive nature is matched only by his transparent need for the affection and acceptance that his very guardedness cuts him off from.
This is a fairly gentle, sentimental representation of Wiseau - in some ways, it's just another story of an entitled wealthy guy creating a community around him who don't say no because they don't want him to cut off the tap of money, and about the fringe element of hollywood, where everybody's afraid they're just a second away from being cut off and never working again. But it never pushes this to being truly confronting about where these needs might come from. In many ways it's a modern day Ed Wood, except that Wood never had the strain of misogyny that reeks from Wiseau, and while Franco gives him puppy-dog eyes, he's just not someone the audience can really warm to particularly.
That's not to say this doesn't have amusing diversions - whether it be in recreations of the original or in the gobsmacked faces of the rest of the cast and crew as they realise just how weird their writer/director/producer really is. But ultimately it adds up to not a lot new, with the film reluctant to go too deep into Wiseau's screwed up philosophies on life and love.It's a light laugh but with not a lot behind it thematcally or dramatically.
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