Bruised and battered drifter Jon wakes up in the middle of a park. He face is covered in cuts and his shirt is a bloody mess. He has the faraway glare of a drug addict or a David Lynch protagonist. He rifles through his bag, searching for…something. He only finds lemons. Yes, that’s right; life has, quite literally, given him lemons. And he’ll be damned if he doesn’t make some lemonade.
This opening scene from Best F(r)iends, the laughably terrible and beyond-pretentious “art film” from the goofs who brought us The Room, encapsulates everything wrong with this misbegotten disaster. It’s clumsy, arch, and symbolic about the most obvious thoughts imaginable. It’s embarrassingly earnest without the talent needed to execute its ambition. For most actors, it would represent a career lowlight; for stars Tommy Wiseau and Greg Sestero, it’s an unqualified success.
Let’s rewind. For the last decade-plus, audiences worldwide have been dazzled by The Room. They love its awful acting, bizarre editing, sloppy continuity, and general crumminess. It’s dubbed the “Worst Movie of All Time.” Its cult grows and grows. A solid non-fiction account of the making of the movie is well-received in 2013. It’s adapted into an equally well-received movie in 2017 that nearly launches James Franco into an Oscar nomination (until several allegations derail his chances). People can’t get enough of The Room. And they can’t get enough of its star, Tommy Wiseau.
The Internet fell in love with the vampire-esque Wiseau. They adored his indistinct accent, his mortician fashion-sense, and his complete lack of self-awareness. He became a meme, a meme that has never truly gone away. Wiseau rode this wave for all it was worth, re-branding The Room as a dark comedy and turning it into a midnight movie sensation. He managed to score a short-lived TV show and he accompanied Franco to the Golden Globes.
Now, the memeage and jokes have culminated with Best F(r)iends. Wiseau is back on the big screen in all his awkward glory. And he’s delivered a rambling, incoherent mess that will repel even the most ardent Room fans.
Actually, I’m not being fair. Wiseau didn’t direct or write this movie; he’s merely the actor. Most of the blame can fall on writer/co-star Greg Sestero (Mark in The Room) and director Justin MacGregor. They’ve crafted something nearly as “special” as The Room.
In my mind, there are three kinds of people who would be interested in F(r)iends: The morbidly curious (who want to see how bad it can be), the “so-bad-it’s-good” crowd (hoping for another Room-level disaster), and the rare breed of people hoping Wiseau and Sestero can turn 15 years of public laughter into an artful statement about fame, friendship, and following your dreams. Only the first group will be satisfied.
Once the aforementioned lemon scene wraps up, Sestero’s Jon hits the streets looking for spare change. He meets Wiseau’s Harvey, a creepy mortician who needs an assistant. Harvey’s entire demeanor practically screams “I WILL BETRAY AND/OR KILL YOU,” but Jon’s desperate for cash, so he signs on. Before long, Jon ropes Harvey into a scheme involving the tooth black market (really) and the two friends are slowly torn apart by jealousy, greed, and poorly-defined motivations.
F(r)iends has the structure of any by-the-numbers “art film.” Overlapping, improvised dialogue? Check. Long stretches of silence while character stare into the distance? Check. Black-and-white filters for no reason? Check. Disconnected, shallow plot? That’s a big check.
F(r)iends understands that “art films” need these symbolic, vague filmic touches, but it has no idea how to employ them. The movie shambles through its mess of a story, filling the spaces with needless silence, bad dialogue, and empty symbolism. The movie’s notions about love, greed, and envy are as cliched and predictable as an afterschool special. Its biggest idea is to present friendship as a sort of prison, but the movie never fully expands on it. All of these showy flourishes simply make the movie feel like an unfinished college film.
“Unfinished” really is the key word. The film quality changes from scene to scene, as they clearly experimented with different cameras without thinking about the whole picture. The audio for some characters, especially Wiseau, is dreadful. Most embarrassingly, the title card appears twice in the first five minutes. This is sloppy filmmaking.
To give director Justin MacGregor credit, he does give most scenes decent lighting. Every setting has a distinct feel, even if the cinematography and editing spoil the lighting’s work. MacGregor also manages to compile a handful of enjoyable montages. There’s not much here, but it’s something.
That’s more than can be said for the acting. Sestero is acceptable as Jon, conveying a lot with body movement and his eyes. He sounds shaky when he actually talks, but he’s clearly the best actor in the picture. Wiseau is beyond terrible as Harvey. I know that’s the point of the movie; the filmmakers want us to be offput by Harvey and nothing’s more offputting than Tommy Wiseau. But it goes beyond creepiness; Wiseau is simply cringeworthy. He delivers every line like he’s the son of William Shatner, Christopher Walken, and an inebriated Gary Oldman. Once in a while he rattles off a funny one-liner, but he’s mostly painful to watch.
Best F(r)iends is the price we pay for celebrating a meme. We’ve given Wiseau’s team full-rein to deliver the worst “art film” in years. But our nightmare isn’t even over. As the end credits proudly proclaim, this is merely Volume One. Volume Two is on its way this summer. That’s right, there’s too much garbage to fit into one movie; they needed two.
Do yourselves a favour; stay home and watch The Room. At least you’ll get a good laugh out of it.