O hai troper! No first-person pronouns, please.
Fridge Brilliance
- Possibly unintentional, but hit is another word for wanting to have sex with someone, so in a sense, Lisa was telling the truth when she said Johnny "hit" her.
- It would also make the whole thing a lot, lot more devious, as implying that Johnny "hit" her after drinking may have been Lisa trying to invoke Rape as Drama, which would then make Claudette shutting Lisa down with "Johnny doesn't drink!" an even bigger case of Skewed Priorities.
- Mark tries to pressure Johnny into telling him confidential information from his work. Johnny then follows up by asking: "How's your sex life?" Though it seems like a non sequitur, Johnny is trying to show Mark how he is making him feel in requesting personal 'confidential' information.
- At the start of that scene, Mark is indicating that he's having girl trouble, and won't give Johnny a straight answer when he asks about it. Then he tries to change the subject to Johnny's work at the bank. So when Johnny asks about his "sex life" , he's actually trying to get back to the original topic.
- In lieu of Johnny's "Maybe I know more than you think I do" line later on in the film, if this wasn't perhaps supposed to be a ham-handed hint that Johnny suspects Mark's banging his fiancee. After all, he wouldn't make a tape recording of phone calls if he didn't suspect something.
- Johnny was completely oblivious to what was going on throughout the film. He seems to be shocked at the end when he listens to his perpetually-recording cassette tape of Lisa and Mark's phone conversation and discovers their affair. He even asks Lisa who she's talking to beforehand. Of course, this can also just be Hand Waved by viewing it as Tommy Wiseau's ineptitude rearing its ugly head.
- Lisa tells her mother that Johnny got drunk and hit her, and Claudette replies "Johnny doesn't drink!", making it look like she only cares about the least important of the two. But it makes sense if you look at it like this: if, as far as Claudette knows, Johnny really doesn't drink, then Lisa's probably lying about that, making her other accusation also dubious.
- You could say that was meant to mean that Johnny hit her because he was drunk, so because he doesn't actually drink, he couldn't have hit her.
- Lisa's mother at one point states she has breast cancer, but it is never remarked later on. Given Lisa's actions - doing things to catch attention and instigate drama for the hell of it, Lisa may have gotten it from her mother. Thus, Lisa sees through her mother's deception and things move on.
- Similarly, Claudette clearly doesn't believe for a second that Johnny hit Lisa. Like mother, like daughter.
- Her breast cancer may actually be the reason that Claudette is strongly discouraging her daughter from leaving Johnny as she may expect her future son-in-law to provide financial aid in handling it. At the very least, she might not want to worry about her daughter's finances while she goes through something like this,
- Denny owes Chris-R money for some drug-related reason, it isn't stated if he was buying or selling them. Earlier in the film, Denny goes to Johnny's apartment to ask to borrow sugar, flour, and butter. Perhaps Denny had purchased marijuana from Chris-R and thought he could make more money by turning them into pot brownies/cookies to sell...?
- Everyone always asks the question of "Why is the movie called The Room?". After thinking about this for awhile and taking into account that the script was originally for a play, there's a realization that the possibility that every major element of the story was all supposed to take place in one big room. In a play, you would have a stage where in between acts props would be moved in and out, in this way it wouldn't be very hard to convey the idea that all the sex scenes, the betrayal, birthday, etc. all took place in one room. It also explains the horrible screen writing when it comes to actors randomly walking in and out of his house (this obviously didn't translate well to the screen, but adds a lot of Narm to the film).
- An alternative theory is that it is based on the phrase "the elephant in the room" - ie, the affair Lisa is having with Mark behind Johnny's back.
- It could be referring to the bedroom, since that is where Johnny and Lisa have sex, where Lisa cheats with Mark (the stair scene notwithstanding), where Johnny confirms that Lisa is having an affair, where his angry downward spiral begins, and the room he kills himself in. The bedroom is the center of the plot.
- No, it was originally going to be called "The Roof" but somewhere a typo was made.
- "The Roof" was just a RiffTrax joke.
- Greg Sestero's book The Disaster Artist contains a piece of meta Fridge Brilliance. Tommy Wiseau wanted English to be the only language spoken in the movie to the point that when Greg said 'catch this' in French during one of the football scenes Tommy was livid and tackled him saying 'No French words dammit!'. The book doesn't go into any more detail but the 'no French words' mandate does help explain why the movie uses future-wife/husband instead of fiancé.
- The future-wife/husband thing is one of the main reasons why Tommy most likely lived in France for some part of his life. It's one of the only phrases which strongly stands out since fiancé is the more appropriate word in English.
- Why did Mark react so violently after smoking weed? Because he took it from Chris-R after "taking him to the police", or more likely, killing him. A lowlife drug dealer would probably be selling drugs of poor quality, mixed with chemicals and so on.
- Mark pushes Mike at the trashcans with much more power than it appears. Notice that Mike says "We were just talking on an underwear issue" without specifying whose underwear was it and Mark is visibly interested. He might have been afraid that he had left something at Johnny's place and pushes him to shut him up and cut the topic short. It was probably poor acting, montage and no special effects that made the fall look so slow and harmless.
- Greg Sestero said in an interview that he had invented a backstory that Mark was a police officer. Hiding violence would be a useful skill for a cop, especially if it was such a morally dubious person as Mark.
- When Mark tells a story about a girl who had so many boyfriends at once and one of them beat her up so badly she ended up in a hospital, Johnny laughs and says "What a story, Mark". The reason for that response is that Johnny knows that Mark made up that story.
- Though considering how Johnny laughs at the drop of a hat throughout the movie, he could just be easily amused.
- The film's title casts a shadow/reflection beneath it, similar to how Johnny's apartment has one room on top of another. This could be a hint that it's the upper bedroom that is the titular room.
- A possible reason to put in the "Chris-R/Drug" subplot (apart from a possible source of the suicide gun): The whole theme of the "tragedy" is that "Everybody betray me!". Denny seemed to be the only guy who was on good terms with Johnny throughout but he needed to have something to betray Johnny with. Therefore; Every major character is a "betrayer"....
- Mark & Lisa and their affair; Claudette making Lisa the kind of girl she is as well as constantly mooching Johnny for money; Mike & Michelle inexplicably using Johnny's apartment for rich, chocolatey, comically-goofy blowjobs; Michelle for simply being Lisa's best friend and she seemed fine with the affair before quickly wising up and realizing it was wrong; Everyone else aren't particularly close pals but Johnny at his end-point figured the the whole world was against him. Denny was the "innocent" one who loved Johnny unconditionally and whom Johnny treated like a son, he needed a vice to betray Johnny with....hence, using Johnny's money for drug buying and dealing.
- Early in the film, Lisa calls Mark on the phone. He tries to brush her off by saying he's busy, even though it looks like he's just sitting in his car. So what's he doing in his car that's so important? Judging by his pot smoking scene later in the film, he's waiting for his dealer. Alternately, if you accept Greg Sestero's personal theory that Mark is an undercover cop, maybe he's on a stakeout.
- Denny demanding that Mark and Lisa leave him and Johnny alone at the end might seem creepy (and entitled, since he's a guest in someone else's home), but remember, Denny was at the party and saw what was going on with the three of them, so you could interpret the way he acts as not being able to stand the people who drove Johnny to his death being with his corpse.
- It's possible that the establishing shots of the Golden Gate Bridge are foreshadowing for Johnny's suicide, since it's a frequently-used spot for suicide jumpers.
- Tommy is often criticized for his memetic chicken impression, going "cheep cheep cheep" instead of the common "bawk bawk bawk" sound that people make when calling someone "chicken". Baby chicks however do go "cheep cheep cheep" and don't make their distinctive clucking sounds until they're matured. Another insult you can call someone for being cowardly is calling them a "baby". Tommy simply combined the two; being a baby and a chicken, ergo you go "cheep cheep cheep" like a baby chicken.
- Meta-Example: Carolyn Minnott (Claudette's actress) asked Wiseau several times if her character's breast cancer was going to come up again, only to be told that it's "a twist". What Tommy meant is that Claudette having cancer at all is the twist, that's the end of the storyline. Trouble is that he probably forgot to put that later in the script.
Fridge Horror
- Mark's I Have This Friend conversation with Johnny about wondering if girls sleep around takes in a whole new horrific meaning when he talks about a girl cheating then getting the crap beaten out of her. Taken in the context of the nature of the chat, it implies Mark was the one who sent a girl to the hospital. Other factors potentially hint at this, like almost throwing Peter off the roof, his demented and angry look at Denny (seen on the characters page), his aggression towards being discovered by Steven and his arguing and physical fighting with Johnny at the end. Overall, his murderous rage at Lisa at the end of the film does not bode well for her.
- Though in that case, it may be more of "kick the son of a bitch" moment for him.
- Would also like to mention pushing over Mike, but it's unclear whether that was in-universe an accident or not.
- Johnny was paying Denny's tuition and rent and while Lisa's in the same boat after Johnny's death we never see any parental figure for Denny to fall back on.
- Lisa states at one point that Johnny wanted to adopt Denny, which would certainly imply that Denny has no other means of support.
- The last we see of Chris R, he's being taken downstairs by Johnny and Mark with a gun to the back of his head. We never hear from him again, there's no mention of taking him to the police, Denny's money problems vanish after the scene and Johnny later has his gun. Clearly, Johnny and Mark took Chris R into the basement and executed him.
- Considering Johnny comes back just a few minutes later (not enough time to actually go to the police anyway), this is quite plausible.
- Alternatively, Chris-R escaped. It's not like Mark and especially Johnny could hold back a violent drug dealer that looks to be in good shape.
- Given how everyone seems to like Johnny, it's entirely possible that he could have defused the situation with Chris-R, paid him off, and let him go.
- Mark's repeated statement "It's clear" when asked what happened to Chris-R isn't exactly reassuring, either.
- Johnny doesn't actually take Chris-R's gun. The gun Chris-R uses to threaten Denny is a later-model Smith & Wesson 5906note - Johnny uses a Beretta 92FS Inoxnote to off himself at the end.
- Although the gun may have changed between scenes, Tommy has said that they are the same gun in the story.
- When Chris-R asks Denny where his money is, he responds that it will be there in a few minutes. Who shows up in a few minutes? Johnny. Considering that Johnny is paying Denny's tuition and is said to be loaded, it's entirely possible that Denny wanted to trick Johnny into coming up to the roof so that Chris-R could extort him. Of course, none of the characters address this, and then the sub-plot about Denny's drug problem is abandoned entirely.
