Five star review, originally posted here one December 5, 2017.
Amazing. I laughed. I cried. I was totally sucked in. Fantastic story, beautifully and honestly told.
I’m one of the people who had never heard about any of this The Room stuff until earlier this year when I saw my first trailer for new The Disaster Artist movie. I got sucked down the rabbit hole, watching YouTube clip after YouTube clip about this movie and its cult following. I gobbled this book up and finished the whole thing in a week (that is lightning speed for me). Could not put it down.
Last night I finally watched The Room, immediately after I finished the book. Here’s the thing- yes, this movie is hilarious, and I laughed heartily. But thanks to this book, I also watched it with immense sadness. Tommy, the man behind The Room, is a really, really sad character, partly a hero because he followed his dreams no matter what and made them happen no matter what anyone said, but also just a really lonely, really sad guy. You end the book both cheering because he’s finally got his dream of making a big Hollywood movie and becoming famous, but you also end the book sobbing because his dream isn’t so much about the movie itself as it is about acceptance and respect, and the people who watch and love his movie do so from a place of disrespect and ridicule.
If I had approached The Room without any knowledge about how it was made, I would never have believed that such a sad, deep, and engaging tale lay behind it. I would have just thought, “Meh, some dude with money to burn and no talent threw together some junk” and moved on. But this book teaches us that even the silliest things in life can have great depth if we examine them a little closer. It also provided a gentle reminder to check ourselves and be nice to one another, which is pretty damn valuable.
Kudos to Sestero, and super kudos to his ghost writer, who I’m guessing deserves most of the credit for so aptly and beautifully crafting Sestero’s wild ride of a story.
Helga without the H 