For the past year, Eliza Janssen has been recreating classic movie moments that look cathartic onscreen, in hopes to improve her own life. This month, for the column’s final edition, she recreates a scene of male bonding from the greatest film of all time.
The Room (2003)
I’m done with this column!! You think it’s cute to watch someone terrify their loved ones, leap from high heights with an umbrella as a parachute, and eat disgusting dessert pasta? Are you not entertained, you sick bastards? (Note: I have very much enjoyed and appreciated writing these articles, and each task was fully self-inflicted.)
After one calendar year of re-enacting movie scenes that I thought looked fun to pull off IRL, the time has come to put away childish things and go back to being a mere movie spectator. For all of this to have meant anything, I’d better clue you in on whether any of these goofy, cathartic movie moments are worth doing in your own day-to-day life. Here’s a quick summary.
Rocky’s morning run: yep, do it. Fun soundtrack, it’s good for your health…just not viable for vegans what with the raw eggs involved.
Office Space printer scene, a real movie food fight, the best hits of movie karaoke: you need a good crew of non-judgemental, film-loving friends or family involved. Can be neat as a team building activity (Flicks head honchos pls take note).
Mary Poppins’ umbrella stunt + creeping out callers on Halloween like Ghostface: nah. You have to be magical like Julie Andrews or a bit of a sadist to enjoy either of these.
Visiting Hanging Rock for a picnic, or a silent retreat for some Fleabag-style reflection: two of the most involved experiments for this column, and two of the most worthwhile. Phoebe Waller-Bridge and those missing schoolgirls really know what they’re doing.
Kramer’s beer-and-cig party trick: Give this a test-run before whipping it out to impress cool people at your pub’s smokers area. Your hair and breath will be nasty af after, but it’s definitely a power move.
So now you know: movie magic is sometimes, with the great sacrifice of one’s dignity, possible to recreate in our non-fictional world. I didn’t have the guts to go for some of the riskier potential column ideas, like crashing a wedding, or testing out the Ludovico technique to brainwash myself into quitting vaping. But to finish off this year of cinephile mayhem, I knew that I wanted to conclude on a scene of friendship and nonsensical fun—because dragging good people along with me in re-enacting these larger-than-life scripted moments has been the most valuable part of the whole ordeal.
Initially I was keen to head out into the woods and try out Twilight‘s vampire baseball scene, but I simply don’t have that supernatural Cullen skill with a bat and ball. Inspiration instead came from another title that gets decried as the “worst movie ever”: Tommy Wiseau’s seminal trash masterpiece The Room, often described as a romantic tragedy written by an alien attempting to understand humanity. Wiseau’s overblown characters have framed photos of spoons on their shelves; their cocktail of choice seems to be vodka and scotch (“Scotchka”); and boy do they love tossin’ the ol’ pigskin around whenever they have a free moment, in a clumsy evocation of American dudes-being-bros masculinity.
Save for evil heartless wench Lisa (Juliette Danielle), the film’s main characters assemble in tuxedos in the titular “Room” before spontaneously deciding that it’s a good time to play yet more footy. Why are they wearing tuxes? For Johnny’s (Wiseau) wedding pictures! When is the wedding? We dunno! Why is it significant that the once-Jesus-like Mark (Greg Sestero) is now clean-shaven (“y’look like baby-face”)? Doesn’t matter! We just know that bespectacled nerd Peter (Kyle Vogt, the actor himself played by king Nathan Fielder in Tommy Wiseau biopic The Disaster Artist) is a chicken, cheep-cheep-cheep, for not jumping at the chance to join the other guys in gettin’ all sweaty in an alleyway, limply passing a ball back and forth.
I was stoked that a small crew of mates answered my call to recreate this pointless scene. Huge thanks to Agnes, Jamie, Kai, Anthony and Hanna for showing up on a sunshiney Coburg day in perfect The Room drag, some even garbed in their best black-and-white suits for the first time since high school prom. We found a suitable, quiet alley and had a neat, awkward time hand-balling and punting a Sherrin footy around: we look like we’re having more fun that Greg Sestero surely was in the actual scene.
I gamely slammed my knees onto the cobblestones to recreate Peter tripping on seemingly nothing, and tumbling right into the camera for an unflattering extreme-close-up: Agnes kindly played Denny (Philip Haldiman), delivering the cutting barb “gee Peter, you’re clumsy!” The general air of silly camaraderie made it feel like a special, if completely inane, afternoon activity, elevated by the bowties we’d all adorned. My kneebones ached…but guys, so did my heart.
It feels cosmically correct to end this column, this year of cinematic shenanigans, on such a meaninglessly fun recreation from the nadir of indie filmmaking. But all so-bad-they’re-good things must come to an end. In the words of a wise man and a terrible director: “I’m tired, I’m wasted…I love you, darling!”
