Best F(r)iends Review: Tommy Wiseau back in action
By Matt Conway
Following up the cult classic The Room, Best F(r)iends is yet another shameless good time from Greg Sestero and Tommy Wiseau.
The Room is easily one of the most iconic cult films of all time, finding an audience over the years due to its hilariously earnest qualities. More importantly, it introduced the world to Tommy Wiseau, a writer, director, and actor who has been beloved for his distinct personality. Heck, they even made a movie about making of The Room with The Disaster Artist.
Now the two major voices behind The Room (Wiseau and his friend/co-star Greg Sestero) are back with Best F(r)iends. The film follows a drifter (Sestero) who befriends a quirky mortician (Wiseau) with a mysterious past. After developing a business relationship, their dynamic is put to the test by paranoia and greed.
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Managing the delicate balance between self-awareness and genuine craft, Best F(r)iends is a worthy follow-up to The Room. It keeps the spirit of what the original achieved while packaging it in a hypnotic new package.
From a filmmaking perspective, there is some surprisingly impressive craftsmanship here. Director Justin MacGregor can certainly be tongue-in-check with his effort, but does so in a balanced way. The movie never overplays its jokes or make them too obvious, rather letting it happen naturally through the material. MacGregor creates a visually bold movie, one that mirrors David Lynch more than a standard comedy. The abstract visual style is a perfect match for the film’s oft-kilter premise and star, and paired with its synth score makes for a compelling experience.
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Tommy Wiseau is easily the most distinct actor I’ve ever seen, with his unique dialect instantly giving him presence as an actor. Working with a role hand-written for him by Sestero, Wiseau proves to be oddly effective as the film’s mysterious mortician. He can be quite funny one moment being his signature self, but there is a darkness there that makes the character interesting to follow. Sestero also gives a solid performance as the straight-man of the film.
Best F(r)iends is mostly successful as a follow-up because it doesn’t try to remake The Room. Written by Sestero, he crafts a narrative that doesn’t rely on the success of that film to work. Rather, the story serves as a metaphor to Sestero and Wiseau’s relationship, one which had its variety of highs and lows. Its an interesting concept to explore, and does give the movie a dramatic layer that is effective. As a spiritual sequel to The Room however, Sestero also finds ample opportunities to create some memorably hilarious moments.
Delivering a similar one-of-a-kind experience, Best F(r)iends is a brazen and absurd movie. It’s certainly rough around the edges (pacing is a issue in particular), but there is a lot of fun to be had with this acid-trip of a film. I can’t wait for Part 2 to come around in a few months.