Best F(r)iends is either one of the worst crime films ever made, or one of the most genius, self-aware comedies of the past few years. In fact, it is very possible that it is both. At this point, it isn’t necessary to venture too deeply into the folklore surrounding The Room – I have written about it on innumerable instances over the years, including in two reviews for the film itself, and references to it across a number of others. As one of the cult classic’s most steadfast admirers, it was inevitable that I’d be beyond excited to see a reunion between two of the iconic stars of the film – and the only surprise is that it took me this long to finally watch it. Best F(r)iends is a film that you either understand or you don’t, and whether you view it as a misguided attempt to recapture the spirit of The Room, or as an endearing journey into camp cinema, or even just a large dosage of unnecessary but enthralling fan service, there is no denying that this film (or at least the first volume of it) was a welcome surprise, and as much as this film could be frustrating, it was certainly worth it for a number of reasons – and those very reasons are exactly why many people might turn away from this film, almost as many as those who will run towards it with reckless abandon. I belong solely to the latter camp, and whether that makes me a devoted fan or a self-destructive fool, I’m not sure. What’s even more worrying is that despite knowing how dreadful of a film Best F(r)iends, I adored nearly every minute of it.

Much like The Room, the film that made this film possible, Best F(r)iends proposes to have a story when all it actually has is a bare structure of a plot, filled in by melodramatic, excessive and inauthentic nonsense. At the outset, we are introduced to Jon (Greg Sestero), a homeless drifter (a tautology?) who finds himself in California, in desperate need for some financial aid, to the point where he is willing to go to the extents of even getting a job. His salvation comes in the form of Harvey (Tommy Wiseau), a mysterious mortician who is of ambigious nationality (or even species), who hires Jon on a whim, welcoming him warmly into his world of reconstructing dead bodies to appear beautiful again. The two men become friends – or at least it would appear that way. Jon discovers that Harvey’s origins are shrouded in mystery and that he secretly hordes gold teeth, which Jon promptly convinces him to sell on the black market. When the two men start to get a taste of wealth and success, greed begins to overtake them – and their friendship that was built on nothing in the first place begins to fall apart – who would’ve thought?

Let’s first discuss the merits of Best F(r)iends, because it is better to struggle towards the beginning than to leave the difficult parts to the end. Best F(r)iends is the perfect film for those of us who have seen The Room over a dozen times and find ourselves wishing we could see the subtle thespians Tommy Wiseau and Greg Sestero acting across from each other again. It is a film that will certainly scratch the fifteen-year itch we’ve all felt since their audacious debut that launched them into cult infamy. Most of the time, Best F(r)iends is nothing more than fan-service – and everything about this film seems to be built entirely out of the same material that made The Room such a classic. An attempt to correct the flaws in the previous film and redefine these men as talented and worthy of mainstream attention this film certainly was not. One has to wonder whether or not they thought they were making something decent, or if they were intentionally making something so bad, it cannot be ignored. In either case, I have nothing but respect and admiration for these two men – it takes a lot to make something this awful, whether it was purposeful or accidental. Regardless of how Best F(r)iends is received, this is, at the very least, a film that will appeal to those who adore their previous collaboration – and this alone almost entirely justifies the existence of this film.

If there is one main takeaway from Best F(r)iends, it is that Tommy Wiseau is severely misunderstood. Since The Room gained popularity and eventually reached into wider mainstream appeal with the release of Sestero’s riotously funny book The Disaster Artist and James Franco’s adaptation of the same name, which chronicled the tumultuous production of the film, Wiseau has undergone quite a substantial shift in perception – he was originally seen as a strange, creepy and even vaguely-reptilian being that appeared out of nowhere. Now he is seen as a strange, creepy and even vaguely-reptilian being that appeared out of nowhere who is also adorable and seems like a genuinely warm-hearted individual. The Room was a passion project built out of vanity, whereas Best F(r)iends is nothing more than a showcase for the idiosyncratic talents (translation: unhinged lunacy) of the most unexpected auteur of the past few decades. It is difficult to look at Wiseau with anything other than sympathy, especially when it becomes clear that he is just someone who wanted to be a star, despite not having an iota of talent. He at least puts in effort, which is extremely clear in Best F(r)iends – he is the only person involved in this film who isn’t in on the joke, and there’s a quality about this film that is as hilarious as it is tragic – Wiseau genuinely seems to believe he is giving a great performance. This is certainly far from the case here – he is as awful as always – but it works in his favour because while everyone else understands the low pedigree of the film they are in, Wiseau’s immense commitment results in a performance that is so horrendous, it becomes undeniably entertaining. It is one thing for a mediocre actor to give a lazy performance in a bad film (just look at nearly every film Eric Roberts has appeared in over the past decade), but it is almost admirable to see an actor with virtually no talent appearing in a film build solely as a showcase for his lack of skill, giving a performance that has the intensity that not even the finest actors could ever hope to muster up. I used to look at Tommy Wiseau with playful curiosity, but Best F(r)iends actually made me deeply respect him. Whereas most actors would understand their shortcomings and dare not exceed their limits of what they know they are capable of, Wiseau recklessly annihilates the boundaries surrounding him and delivers one of the most dedicated performances I have seen in years.

Another area in which Best F(r)iends succeeds is that it understands what it wants to be – if the inception behind this film is to be believed, it was Greg Sestero’s idea, borne out of sympathy for Wiseau, to write a film that would see them reunite. The fact that this film was even made in the first place is an embarrassment of riches – most of us would have been content to continue watching The Room on a loop for the rest of our lives, as that is a film that only serves to be the gift that keeps on giving. Sestero, for all of his shortcomings as an actor and a writer (Best F(r)iends is certainly one of the worst written films I’ve ever experienced), deserves respect for giving audiences something we didn’t realize we needed – a film of almost epic scope that reunites the two most unlikely stars, in what can hopefully become a camp classic, and while it is certain Best F(r)iends will never reach the same cult popularity as The Room, it certainly manages to be a worthy follow-up. Based solely on Volume One, Best F(r)iends has an endless supply of camp potential – poor line-readings, non-coherent storytelling (in the sporadic parts where Best F(r)iends actually has something that resembles a story) and a consistent stream of quotable lines that stand alongside iconic ones such as “you’re tearing me apart Lisa!” and “cheep-cheep-cheep!”. It is a film that is just as awful, contrived and predictable as any of the best trash cinema – just consider that this film ends with a literal cliffhanger or the fact that the coda is more surreal than anything even David Lynch could concoct. And every moment is just astonishingly brilliant in how unhinged it is.

Best F(r)iends knows exactly what it is aiming to be, and it achieves everything it hopes to – and perhaps the biggest merit is that while there was obviously more support given to this film, it never attempts to atone for the shortcomings of The Room. Despite having a much larger budget (albeit not big enough to prevent it from looking more cheap than a poorly-produced insurance commercial), and some actual industry backing (insofar as there were people involved in the making of this film that actually had professional experience), it doesn’t try and correct where the previous film went wrong – it doesn’t try to be smarter, nor does it do anything that would require the audience to feel much sympathy for these characters. It doesn’t try and extract good performances from any of its cast (and at least we can see Wiseau is trying – Best F(r)iends confirmed to me that Greg Sestero is profoundly less talented, and he doesn’t even put much effort in here – he’s either a brilliant actor or an awful actor, because it takes either immense talent or a considerable lack of insight to be this bad). Importantly, Best F(r)iends is self-aware. It understands its flaws, and not only does it not try to foolishly cover them up, it embraces them, and builds itself up entirely on the absurdity of its premise, and the inherent shortcomings that were always going to be the result of this reunion. Ultimately, what the makers of Best F(r)iends understood above everything else was that when confronted with two choices in the making of a film starring Tommy Wiseau and Greg Sestero, they knew audiences would much rather see a trainwreck of a film than an actual well-made film, because the former at least has endless entertainment value, and we should rather leave the quality filmmaking for the professionals. If we are going to get a new film from two of the most horrendous performers of all time, it may as well be as delightfully awful as it can possibly be – at least it stays faithful to the reputation of the original.

All of this, and we are only halfway through a pair of films that may be the most single-handedly absurd thing I have seen in a while. I have absolutely no idea where Best F(r)iends: Volume Two will take me – and I’m going to hold off a little longer to allow the first chapter to settle before I venture off into this unpredictable world again. Best F(r)iends may not be as audacious as The Room (nothing can ever hope to be), and it may be constructed out of the premise that it is absurd and inherently awful, which was the complete opposite of Wiseau’s original intention with his magnum opus. However, when it comes to trash cinema, Best F(r)iends has all the trimmings – it is badly-written, cheap beyond compare and extremely confusing. There is a complete lack of coherency, and tonal balance is entirely dismissed – it is equal parts dark comedy, crime drama, neo-noir, surreal mystery and even touches on the realm of horror. It is crude, confusing and often extremely tedious and repetitive. It is a film you struggle to watch, always wanting to walk away, but never being able to do so. It doesn’t make any sense, and it often comes close to going against all that is sacred in the art of filmmaking with its reckless attempts at being cinematic. And honestly, I would not have it any other way.