The Room by Tommy Wiseau

Notes by Matt Lazarus

www.thestorycoach.net
DISCLAIMER: The Room by and (C) Tommy Wiseau.
Tommy Wiseau has never been a client. These notes are essentially a review of the movie. Despite
this, I feel guilty for violating pretend client confidentiality.
Mr. Wiseau, if you're reading this, congratulations on actually getting a movie made. It's no small
feat.
Dear Tommy,
I've read THE ROOM. Per your instructions, I've focused my annotations on the first five pages. I think
I get what you're trying to say here. The best version of this script is about a guy named Johnny who
tries his best to do what is nice, right and proper. Despite this, life continually shits on him, Job-like.
I can see a version of this that makes for a tight psycho thriller. I can also see the indie comedy version
of this that plays like a deconstruction of the nice guy archetype that plagues well meaning men
everywhere. I can also see this as a multi-character drama in the vein of ST. ELMO'S FIRE, which
analyzes a series of disaffected characters through dovetailing subplots.
All of these ideas are implicit in the setup, but none of them emerge as the key idea. The opening
throws a lot of ideas on the table, but doesn't commit to any. As a result, I, the audience have no idea
what you want me to follow. You've probably heard the adage show, don't tell. There's a caveat to
this, whether you're showing or telling, you have to be clear. You need to precisely frame what you
want the audience to understand, otherwise you'll confuse them and lose their attention.
There are a number of ways to approach a rewrite. I've suggested rethinking this at the outline stage,
but given that you're fighting a deadline and you have the sets built, let's look at how we can use scene
work to create a better first impression that will invite the reader into the world of your story and
encourage them to press on through the first act.
THE FIRST SCENE:
The good: I think you do a fair job at setting up the ordinary world. I get that Johnny and Lisa are in a
relationship, I get that Johnny's trying a little too hard. I need that understanding to progress in your
story, so good job on building a baseline of who/what/where.
The bad: The script reads as thin. All scripts battle space restrictions. All scripts need to do certain
things, like hook me on the characters and establish the base reality or the ordinary world. The
opening needs to set up my understanding, so you can subvert or evolve it later.
The current draft has a bunch of lines that do single duty. Each functionally illustrates very small ideas,
but the lines do single duty. They present the world, but don't invest me in it, they advance the plot but
not the understanding. There's no color or richness to them. More on this later.
A WORD ON AMBIGUITY
Currently, there are a whole bunch of ambiguities in the first five pages. None was egregious enough

for me to throw the script across the room, but each created a little hole in my understanding. By page
five, my understanding was so shredded, that I lost any ability to relate or invest in the narrative.
I call it the huh-gasm. Each little ambiguity built up progressively, until my entire understanding was
rocked with a shockwave of confusion.
The major culprit for this is Denny.
WHO IS DENNY?
Having read the whole script, I know that Denny is the neighbor kid, an 18-year-old college boy who
Johnny is supporting financially. He's like a son to Johnny. This is all good stuff, but it's presented in
the most unclear way possible.
Imagine the eventual audience for this movie. They won't be able to read ahead and then skip back,
they'll be stuck absorbing this story linearly. And all they'll see is a random kid enter the scene. He
could be Johnny's son. He could be Lisa's little brother. He might even be their absurdly young
roommate (don't laugh, I've seen it happen). It could be any of these or none of these. But you have to
make it clear as soon as possible, otherwise the audience will be too confused by his existence to
meaningfully enjoy anything he might do later.
Two techniques will help you out with this: calling it out and justifying it.
A WORD ON THE AUDIENCE
I hesitate to use the word normal, but some version of a normal understanding exists. Call it common
sense, call it being neurotypical, call it the lowest common denominator. Whatever you call it, know
that the audience has a sense of propriety, of how the world ought to be.
Thank god they do, understanding patterns, expectations, and how to subvert them is how we're able to
do our jobs, how we can write to an intended effect.
Most writers are slightly abnormal. Many resent the mere use of the term. Nevertheless, there is a
common sense that exists, and you go against it at your peril.
All of this preamble serves to soft-pedal my main point. It's fucking weird that Denny enters the house
without knocking, it's weird that he jumps into bed with the lovers, and it's weird that they don't call it
out.
At this point you may be resisting my note about common sense existing. You may be thinking,
'shows what you know, Matt, I based Denny on a kid I know who really does that.' Maybe so, but truth
is stranger than fiction. Given that stories must be presented as credible illustrations of human behavior
to an audience, it having really happened isn't good enough.
As an example, look at COMPLIANCE, which is about a real crime. It really happened, but the crime
in question is so weird, that people ended up walking out on it because it wasn't properly explained.
CALLING IT OUT/
In comedy, there's an archetype called the straight man. His job is simply to call things out, to
represent the common sense of the audience, to point out things that are messed up.

There are zombies everywhere, and you're risking your life for a wedding photo?
It takes years to get a MacArthur genius grant how the heck did you get one over night?
You got your ass kicked by her ex-boyfriend and then she gave you her number? When does that
happen?
In films, characters are rarely pure straight men, but they can take turns being the voice of reason.
Even if you don't fully explain the seemingly odd behaviors listed above, you get points for simply
mentioning them. You don't even need that good an explanation (see 'hanging a lampshade on it').
Hence, it'd probably be useful to have Lisa call out Denny's weirdness as soon as it happens. It could
simply be an irritated eye roll. She might nakedly say, Denny is a weird kid.
JUSTIFYING
If Denny was a throwaway character in the second act, you wouldn't need to work so hard. But given
that he's a major character who appears in the first fucking scene, you're going to want to work extra
hard to justify his behavior to build trust and goodwill with the audience.
Justifying is a way of making things right, or more simply, explaining. If I see a woman eating clay
like it's ice cream, I'm gonna think she's nuts. If I learn that she's having weird pregnancy cravings, I'll
think the behavior's nuts, but it'll be rooted in a sympathetic, relatable motivation that roughly makes
sense.
Justifying Denny will actually serve three purposes: It'll convince the audience you know what you're
doing for just a little longer. It'll showcase a truly nice thing that Johnny is doing, which will help me
relate to him (see pet the dog/save the cat), and it'll allow you to explain Johnny and Lisa's living
arrangements, which could be more more clear.
Bad example:
Denny goes off to the bathroom. J and L have a hushed conversation.
L: Denny's here again. It's a little weird.
J: You know he's like a son to me.
L: But he's not your son. So it's weird that he eats our food. I mean, it's nice that you're paying his
college tuition, but set some boundaries.
J: I like to help people. Look at how we me.
L: Oh please. I told you I'd pay you back for the rent.
J: You don't need to. Have I told you I love you today.
L: Many, many times.
Hopefully your dialogue will transcend that example, but it should serve the same basic function. You'd
need to justify Denny jumping into bed with them too, which is even weirder. Is he a sexually abused
child who doesn't understand basic decorum? Is he simple or slow? Does he play on Johnny's own
tragic back story? Never be shy about calling shit like this out. Then characters can ask why. The
answers are usually illuminating.
BEHAVIOR
Characters aren't real people. They're word puppets that we create to serve functions in our stories, 12point courier marionettes we use to enact our Freudian psychodramas.
That's true. It's also really unromantic and unappealing. The characters need verisimilitude to hide the

strings. We need to fake enough realism in them so that they give the illusion of being living, breathing
people. Otherwise they fall into the uncanny valley.
We create this illusion by giving them realistic behavior.
It helps to think of this from the actor's point of view. A good actor can make terrible lines feel human
and fully realized. But they can't do it unless they have a strong handle on why a specific line is totally
necessary for the plot. As noted above, in screenwriting you're selling an understanding.
Let's put ourselves in Johnny's shoes. He works hard at an unspecified job (seriously, be specific here)
and is the sole provider for an unorthodox family unit. Even if he have no idea that Lisa is going to
cheat on him, he must have a subconscious fear that he's not good enough for her, otherwise he
wouldn't knock himself out trying to please her with gifts all the time (unless it's a new relationship is
it? You might want to make that clear as well).
Even though you want him to be a nice guy, you want to be really specific re: the fears that motivate
me. The arm chair psychologist in me suspects that Johnny has a true fear of being alone, and that his
self worth and deserving power are minimal at best. Hence, he works hard to be pleasing to Lisa, but
ironically these behaviors only make him boring to her. I can't speak for all men, but I've certainly been
there.
Now the absolute worst thing you could do is to have someone nakedly state this. That would be on
the nose dialogue. It would accomplish the clarity you need and anchor understand, but it would also
be boring and so artificial that it would itself need to be called out.
Rather, take this psychological understanding and show it via behavior that makes it clear what you're
going for without having to baldly state it.
Right now, I picture Johnny sneaking out from his office during his lunch break. He goes to Lisa's
favorite boutique and drops a fair sum on a dress he knew she'd like. He's horny, their sex life hasn't
been too good. He keeps the box under his desk all day. He's vibrating with anticipation. This is going
to get him laid. He's so distracted, he can't think straight. He rushes home like a kid with a gold star,
desperate to please his lady.
It may be that this is worlds away from what you want me to picture. So be it. But if that's the case,
give him behavior that makes what your envisioning as clear. Note that you don't need to show all this
information (though it might help to root the ordinary world and make Johnny more relatable likeable).
But even if you don't show it, you need to use action and dialogue in the first scene to convey that. He
should behave as if it's true. It's what the actors call what came before, it's a subliminal hallmark of
quality, and it gives the illusion that the characters have a life outside the page.
SIDENOTE LISA
Given that the script hinges on her dissatisfaction with Johnny, you might want to hint at that in the
opening scene. Right now they have a romance scene right out of a Harlequin Romance/Cinemax
softcore. It'd be easier to hint at the dissatisfaction before and during the sex, because that would save
you a lot of the exposition that you cram into the later two scenes with Lisa and her mom.
BACK TO BEHAVIOR
So anyway, Johnny bursts in, desperate to see Lisa. Have her react to the gift. You could even use this

space to do double duty have her exposit that they live together, that he buys her too many gifts.
Show a tremor of reluctance as she's being seduced, it'll square with what we see of her later. Anyway,
they kiss, passionately. Maybe she even strips out of her dress right there and puts on the red dress in a
reverse strip tease. And yet, as Johnny kisses her, she gets into it. He's lost in the moment, she's lost in
the moment and then Denny comes in...
Whomp whomp (that's a comedy failure sound, another thing that you should avoid in the draft, but
that is implicit anyway).
Playing up the emotional stakes of the dress giving/seduction, will help in the following ways:
1. It'll save you a camera reset/potentially distracting, needless cut as she comes down the stairs.
2. It'll spark my prurient interest you're shooting a low budget drama with sexy moments. Let
characters be sexy.
3. It'll allow you to show the seeds of Lisa's dissatisfaction in action, in the gorgeous immediacy of the
now and save you awkward exposition later.
4. It'll make Johnny more relatable, because I can relate to someone who's excited to have a sex night
more than I can a rich guy who takes it for granted.
5. It'll enshrine your ideas in active immediacy, giving it more texture. Right now the talk is a little thin
and disposable.
6. It'll set up Johnny for a big fail when Denny comes in, which will make us like him more.
By building up Johnny's investment in Lisa, it'll help sell his relationship with Denny more.
1. His irritation will be more founded (also, make that more present the current draft hints at it, but
honestly, even the nicest guy would be a little pissed at being cockblocked).
2. The more you build up Johnny's investment in Lisa, the more likable he becomes for dealing with
Denny. If he's desperate to be with Lisa, but he still takes time out to give Denny some of the fatherly
attention he so desperately craves, it makes him even more of a good guy.
2a. Consider having Denny need something money, advice, something, that will give him more of an
excuse for being there.
2b. Currently, Denny reads a little creepy. Wanting to watch seems perverted and vaguely Oedipal. Is
that what you're going for? If so, play it way up. If not, play it way down.
3. Having Johnny pass up sex to be nice to Denny gives us a clear illustration of why Lisa's so bored
with him. Consider having them not have sex currently, it feels a little redundant to the next sex
scene. The next sex scene would feel more earned and narratively significant if it came off the heels of
this failure.
3b. By linking the dress purchase, the Denny relationship, and Lisa's dissatisfaction under one thematic
umbrella (Johnny is too nice and it makes him uninteresting in bed), you're linking making three
disparate ideas feel like symptoms of one clearcut problem. This makes Johnny's flaw and arc more
clear, and makes everything that happens in the first five pages feel more of a piece.
IN CLOSING
I know that this is a daunting page of notes, but I hope you find them useful. Beginning writers tend to
vastly overthink their premises and vastly underthink their individual lines.
That's a mistake. Every line must have a purpose, a unity. They should all be necessary to form the full
picture, even if that unity only becomes clear after the fact.

You have a simple, clear cut premise. Because of that simplicity, the onus is on the scenes to carry the
reader's attention. Right now the scenes feel perfunctory, rushed, tossed aside. This is a story that will
be solved and achieved via meticulous attention to detail on the scene level. If this was a musical, you'd
need songs. As this isn't, you need drama, good scenes, ones that vividly illustrate your understanding
of the human condition.
Like I said, it's a start. I see potential in the premise, and you deserve kudos for actually finishing a
script and getting it to the point where you're almost ready to shoot. I look forward to subjecting the
next ten pages to the same kind of pedantic, joyless analysis.
Email me with any questions,
Best,
Matt