This week I was fortunate enough to catch a screening of Best F(r)iends, a new film reuniting The Room duo Tommy Wiseau and Greg Sestero on screen for the first time, at the Prince Charles Cinema (read my review). I decided to ask Tommy and Greg a question in the pre-film Q&A.
I related to the pair my interpretation of the story Mark tells Johnny about a woman whose cuckolded lover “beat her up so bad she ended up in a hospital on Guerrero St.” (I previously posted this theory on the sadly now-defunct The Room Fan Group on Facebook.) That scene opens with Johnny denying having hit Lisa. What if Mark was, by telling that story, trying to see Johnny’s reaction to domestic violence? And, when Johnny reacts so callously–“haha, what a story Mark!”–Mark takes this to mean that maybe Johnny did hit Lisa, and Mark loses all respect for his best friend and decides it’s fair game to sleep with Johnny’s future wife?
Like many people on the Facebook group, Greg thought I was reading too deep into the scene. But Tommy said he loved the theory and my analysis, encouraging me to write about it, which is what I’m doing here. He agreed with it 100%, but then quite fairly reduced that to 99.9%.
To tell an artist your take on their work, and for it to resonate with them, is a pretty fantastic thing. All the more so considering that the last time I asked Tommy a question, back in 2013, he said he couldn’t understand my accent and asked if I was from North Hollywood.
The Writes of Man 