Bane2016
I've never been so bored in a cinema.There is nothing memorable or noteworthy contained within this film. Wiseau manages to deliver a performance lacking any passion, energy believability or truthfulness. Say what you want about his performance in 'The Room', but at least he he gave it energy and passion. Greg Sestero is as bad as he was in The Room and offers nothing of interest here.Unlike Wiseau's magnum opus, which moves at lightning pace, Best F(r)iends is flat, poorly paced, sterile, unimaginitive and held back by desperate attempts to bring the audience onboard with shoved in 'The Room' references. You would think, given the opportunity they both had with this film, Sestero and Wiseau would have wanted to move away from 'The Room' and produce something that could stand on its own. The trailers certainly suggested as much. The references to the 'The Room' bored me, and made me wish I was watching that film instead. At least that film is entertaining. For some reason they went for what can only be described as a Pretentiousness Overload, ripping as much as they could get away with from Mulholland Drive. The soundtrack is quite simply one of the worst soundtracks ever committed to film and must've been ripped from a Youtube playlist of Royalty/Rights free stock music. At points it is poorly mixed in, either being overly loud or ruining the tone of scenes. They released a clip on Youtube not too long ago featuring a scene where Wiseau's character Harvey purchases a car. The clip was actually a nice scene with a reasonably decent performance from Wiseau. This scene in the film is longer, the point of the scene is muddled and supressed and the music has been changed, completely ruining the tone. It is one example of several scenes which have been poorly edited and scored in the film.I like 'The Room'. I think it has a charm about it, I think it is (unintentionally) a comedy masterpiece with fast pacing and memorable characters and moments, and the soundtrack at least conveys the emotions of the film despite not being very varied. This film has none of that. If you're looking for Wiseau craziness, you might be occasionally entertained.
granoples
I must urge anyone coming in to watch this film, to watch it with friends. I can describe this film as nothing more than the spiritual successor to the room, equally as fun to poke fun of and to laugh at. This movie is in no way an actual quality movie like some of the other reviews imply. This movie transcends that. This movie transcends all other movies by becoming something that almost seems to make fun of all films really. It has overtly modern aesthetics in their shots that seem all too familiar, but the spin Best F(r)iends adds to it is that it's god awful like just about all overtly modern cinema, It's just more in your face in Best F(r)iends. It's every move seems to make fun of reality as a whole as well, making fun of odd idiosyncrasies (like having weird purple lights in the front of a car) that you could see in real life, by giving them to Tommy Wiseau's character, who is just as outlandish as his choices. It accidentally but brilliantly pokes fun at so many things that feel oddly true just by putting it in one of the most outlandish contexts ever made.
This also happens to be home to many new hilarious dialogue pieces. Not in a way that's entirely true to The Room-esque nonsense. This new film instead finds more subtly ridiculous unnatural ways to say something and then combines it with an explosively bad inflection of voice or awful performance to back it up "buh-LACK and white movies". It also adds an extra layer of uncanny by fooling you into thinking the next scene would be normal and human, by showing us the normal and human poses the actors make. This trick quickly turns and shows you that there is no true human element to this film, simply all the more frightening by demonstrating a mask, as if it wants to hide from you. Not scared hide, like hunting hide. This consistent motiff reminds you to keep your guard up no matter what.
It is in my firm belief that the woodenness of Greg Sestero and the outlandish inhumanity of Tommy Wiseau makes for one of the greatest cinematic pairings of all time; and that they could do no wrong making the most ridiculous films ever. But don't be fooled, this is not a The Room copy. This is a lot more subtle, especially compared to the outlandish soup drama like quality to the room. This is rather a brilliant twist on modern film. DO NOT MISS THIS MOVIE.
joewestcott
I'd like to preface this review by saying that the version of 'Best F(r)iends' I saw was a work in progress, so much of what I write might no longer be relevant by the time the completed version is released, as, presumably, it's all subject to change. This also, of course, means that the final product is likely to be significantly better than what I saw.Having read and enjoyed Greg Sestero's excellent book 'The Disaster Artist' I was very excited to learn that he'd written a screenplay, and that he would be starring in it alongside his old companion, the ever-inscrutable Tommy Wiseau. Greg's book is thoroughly demonstrative of his ability to write extremely well - his eloquence, perceptive wit, and remarkable gift for description are all apparent in every page of his economically structured account of the making of 'The Room'. It was also made clear at the screening (attended by Tommy and Greg themselves) that 'Best F(r)iends' was to be considered something utterly separate from 'The Room'. Greg even stated at the screening that he felt Tommy hadn't been given a real chance to shine as an actor, and wanted to write him a part that he could really sink his teeth into.So, knowing how good a writer Greg is, how good the trailer looked, and how keen the pair were to distance themselves from the infamous cult classic film that has followed them for so long, I was expecting something unique, profound, and haunting.And that's what I got! Here and there, at least. It's tough to give this film any rating at all to be honest, as it seems to fluctuate between something highly competent in its style and themes, and something amateurish in terms of writing, technicalities, and sometimes acting.The overall feel of the film is great, especially in its early stages. The use of dialogue is minimal, to begin with at least, as we see a blood-stained and bruised John (Greg Sestero) wander aimlessly through the city until stumbling upon a quirky mortician with a love for life (and death), Harvey (Tommy Wiseau). The cinematography is beautiful in these first 10 minutes or so, and the soundtrack, eerie and ominous. We also see great performances from both Greg and Tommy in their first scene - Greg's portrayal of the silent and wayward John is pleasingly nuanced, and contrasts perfectly with Tommy's idiosyncratic and unconventionally wise Harvey. Everything works so well at this point, even down to costume design, but before long the film's faith in the implied seems to run dry.The initial cracks show when the dialogue becomes more extensive and we see John conversing properly with Harvey for the first time. Not only does most of the dialogue throughout the film feel improvised and overly-expositional, but it seems that the cinematographer knew how to shoot everything except dialogue. Firstly, the dialogue shots appear poorly lit and framed (in fact the lighting state seems to change from shot to shot), and secondly I think I'm right in saying that the camera actually 'crosses the line' at one point when John and Harvey are throwing a basket ball back and forth - a truly amateur mistake to make. This, coupled with the shot of John being over-exposed, was so jarring and uncomfortable to look at that it completed distracted from what they were saying - I cannot for the life of me tell you what was said during that exchange.It also suffers from the occasional continuity error, generally speaking these are negligible, but one that stands out in my mind was when John and Traci (Kristen StephensonPino) were watching 'Sunset Boulevard'. We see the words 'The End' appear on the screen, it then cuts to John saying he enjoyed the film, and Traci recommending 'Double Indemnity', it cuts back to the TV screen and we see Gloria Swanson creeping toward the camera in the iconic final moment of the film. Needless to say, in reality, that iconic moment happens BEFORE we see the words 'The End' on the screen, not after. Maybe this was intentional as it seems too obvious to miss, but it didn't come across that way.I found myself constantly baffled by this film's ability to come across so cool and calculated in one moment, and completely unsure of itself in the next. In fact, I can't help but feel slightly frustrated by the whole thing because the basic skeleton of the film seems brilliant, it's just distractingly rough around the edges - the plot is somewhat conventional and classic, taking after the kinds of films to which it so fondly refers ('Double Indemnity', 'Sunset Boulevard' etc), the difference being that it's layered with a fresh and unfamiliar paint that brings into play questions of loyalty, identity, greed, the macabre, and the fickle nature of icons and their worth.The film does so well in expressing these things through images, take when John discovers Harvey's necrophilia allegations (a moment I audibly gasped at), or when Harvey is wearing the mask he made of John, or simply being shown the images of film icons that Harvey has adorned his work space with (Charlie Chaplin, Brigitte Bardot etc) that it's jarring when they're expressed through clunky dialogue, like when John mentions Harvey's allegations in passing during an already stilted scene.Furthermore, any characters who aren't John, Harvey, or Traci have a tendency to feel unneeded and stereotypical, serving only as vague plot functions. Although the character Traci is very convincingly performed and somewhat interesting, she does a feel a little thrown in for convenience.The film's confident use of stylised techniques is where it performs best, they might be a little over-used but the slow motion moments of emphasis, or switching quite suddenly to black and white provide the film with an unsettling punctuation that's likely leave an imprint in the mind long after viewing - Harvey dressed all in jet black, blowing out the candles on his jet black cake was particularly indelible for me personally. The key thing about these moments is that no one is talking during them! While most of these silent moments are a welcome sight, I do recall one montage of John and Harvey walking around the city with a seemingly drunk man dancing around them in slow motion as being a pointless and halfhearted attempt at something 'artsy'.Maybe I'm a little too harsh on the dialogue, for all I know it COULD have actually been improvised given that I saw a work in progress, but I did feel that it relentlessly interrupted the flow of something elegant and haunting. I suppose writing a screenplay is very much a different beast to writing an account of a series of true-life events, but I somehow struggle to believe that the scenes were all done in the way Greg Sestero had intended. The real issue at this point is not knowing what's going on behind the scenes, not knowing exactly who's responsible for what, not knowing how faithful to the script all the performances are. I only feel the need to point this out as I'm so aware of Greg Sestero's brilliant mind that I can't help but feel the need to defend him, he wrote my favourite book after all.Overall, I think the film's potential is through the roof, the execution just needs some serious work, but there's plenty of evidence that it CAN work. I can't wait to see the second installment, but am probably more excited for the final version of what I've already seen.
