The Room: You're Tearing Me Apart!

Eight minutes into "The Room" and there is already an unnecessarily graphic sex scene complete with rose petals and plenty of groaning and thrusting.  The main character, Johnny, had bought his fiance, Lisa, a nice red dress and upon seeing her with it on uttered the un-cliched and romantic "I can't wait to take that off of you" phrase.  And with that sleazy phrase, begins the most pornographic five minutes of film I've ever seen. 



The face says it all.



Apparently life is too boring for Lisa so she seduces Johnny's best friend, Mark, saying "I like you a lot, loverboy," and then "I need you to make love to me."  If that doesn't make you want to get sweaty to some Marvin Gaye music, I don't know what would. And then, another sex scene!  Only nine minutes after the first one!

After the one tryst, Lisa tells Johnny's best friend that she is in love with him.  A girl who gets that clingy, that fast is never a good sign.  Lisa is supposed to be some sort of femme fatale, but she only comes off as completely nuts.  One minute she's saying how caring Johnny is, and the next she's lying that Johnny got drunk and hit her and telling Johnny that she's pregnant.  In her words, she's doing what she wants. 

Dialogue comes flying across the screen with absolutely no emotion.  Characters are irrational and built around stereotypes.  Johnny's face displays absolutley no emotion throughout the course of the film.  Don't even get me started on Johnny's accent, it's truly one-of-a-kind.  

The movie also managed to work in a classic fifth-grade insult into the script of a suposedly serious movie.  "XYZ-Examine Your Zipper," I never thought I'd hear that one again. 

The movie took a little too long to get to the dramatic meat of the proverbial chicken leg, instead choosing to gnaw a while on the bone.  Three times in the movie, in almost identical scenes, Lisa sat on the couch with her mom, whining about how she didn't love Johnny.

When the movie finally got to the dramatic revelation of Lisa's affair, the wait was worth it.  In his strongest shouting voice, Johnny yelled at Lisa, "You're tearing me apart," and then challenged Mark saying, "You are just a chicken: chip-chip-chip-chip."  Robert De Niro, take some notes. 

And then, spoiler alert: Johnny shoots himself.  I was devasted, until I saw Johnny's eyes open slightly and my hopes for a sequel ("The Rooms" maybe) were renewed, but you can chalk that up to bad acting.

Despite all of its flaws, I was glued to the TV, afraid I would miss another sex scene.     

Unnecessary Sex Scene Count: 5