The Disaster Artist

Going into the theater, I was under the impression that this was a silly James Franco and Seth Rogen movie that made fun of The Room, a legendary bad movie. That's not what the Disaster Artist is at all. Instead, it celebrates The Room. It celebrates Tommy Wiseau, Greg Sestero, their passion, and their pursuit of a dream.

Sure, The Disaster Artist comments on how The Room bombed terribly; it had to acknowledge this. It comments on the utter lack of acting talent that Tommy and Greg possessed; it had to acknowledge this too. But it handles these details with such delicacy and care that I never felt that it was putting down the characters. Actually, it seemed that the film admired them. Even when the world told them to quit, they never gave up on themselves or each other. The message is surprisingly inspiring.

The movie becomes something more than mere mockery because of the way it handles the relationship between Tommy and Greg with such care and affection. The two genuinely liked each other and saw each other in ways that no one else did. Greg certainly did not understand all of Tommy's methods and decisions, but he understood Tommy's good intentions. Establishing this buddy connection is crucial later in the movie.

After Tommy writes The Room and they begin filming, Tommy expresses his idiosyncrasies in full force. While the film crew sees him as a confusing weirdo, we know there's something more. Despite his utter incompetence in directing and acting and all aspects of filmmaking, we still root him. And we still root for Greg, ever the supportive friend. Tommy makes absurd and confounding choices that don't make sense to Greg and they don't make sense to anyone else either. Even one of Tommy's explanations was simply "people do crazy things." Still, Greg remains loyal.

With as strange as Wiseau behaves, capturing his eccentricities would clearly prove challenging. Give James Franco credit for capturing Wiseau's weirdness in character without ever devolving into derisive mockery. Franco captures his gait, stiff shoulders, hunched posture, indeterminable and inconsistent accent, and his laugh. Watching The Room and hearing Tommy Wiseau laugh, I thought that it sounded completely fake. I chalked it up to another instance of poor acting. But after seeing Wiseau in interviews, I realized that it was his real laugh. To him, the laugh wasn't poor acting because that's what he thinks a genuine laugh sounds like.

Seeing and hearing Wiseau behaving as himself explains a lot about his behavior in The Room. He's just an interesting and very unusual guy. His acting and the acting of others in his movie is still atrocious, but it shifts from startlingly and confusingly bad to understandably bad. And more importantly, seeing the real Tommy makes his movie all the more fun.

You don't need to see The Room to enjoy The Disaster Artist. Would it help? Sure. Seeing The Room first makes many of the inside jokes made in The Disaster Artist funnier and gives a clearer sense of how confoundingly weird the movie truly is. Words cannot do it justice. To understand, you have to see The Room for yourself. I recommend seeing both.

Ed Wood was Stanley Kubrick compared to Tommy Wiseau but James Franco treats him with such loving care that we can connect with his humanity without letting his eccentricities pull us away from him. That, I think, was the most moving aspect of this outrageous true life tale. James Franco is spectacular keeping it true and real in a character that lent itself for caricature. Dave Franco, James's brother in real life is the most believable instant soulmate of the James Dean wannabe. Seth Rogen is also perfect as the one knows that they're in for a major disaster and yet sees the whole thing to the bitter end. I must confess I hadn't heard of The Room but now it's on top of my list of films I want to see next.

Struggling would-be actor Greg (Dave Franco) meets bizarre, mysterious Tommy Wiseau (James Franco) in an acting class, and the two develop an awkward friendship. The eccentric Tommy offers to move to Los Angeles with Greg to kick start their careers, but once there they find little success. However, one day they decide that, if Hollywood won't work with them, they'll just make their own movie, which leads to the production of one of the worst movies of all time, The Room.

The Room slowly developed a cult following after it's very limited release in 2003. By the end of the decade, it had become a cult item on par with Rocky Horror Picture Show, with raucous midnight screenings and the audience reciting dialogue along with the film. The real Greg Sistero, friend and sometime roommate of Tommy Wiseau, wrote a book about the making of the movie, and this film is an adaptation of that book, so it's told from Greg's point of view. The real Wiseau is a very odd, almost cartoonish figure, and James Franco does a terrific job of portraying him, from his bizarre nightclub-vampire look to his indefinable accent. James' real-life brother Dave Franco plays Greg, and he's a bit weaker, but maybe so is Greg. The rest of the cast is rounded out by many familiar faces from the comedy world of the past decade and a half or so, with a few surprises (Is that Sharon Stone and Melanie Griffith?). I have grown to love The Room for the "hilariocity" it is, and thus my appreciation of this behind-the-scenes look at its making may be greater than those who have not or who fail to see that colossal failure's charm. I found this movie funny and endearing. One of that year's best and look ma, no CGI.

So yeah, The Room is pretty well-known by now, becoming just about the most popular 'so bad it's good' film of all time over the last six or seven years, as has the story behind it- as detailed in Greg Sestero's book, The Disaster Artist.

So being a fan of both, I had a good idea of what I was in for, approaching the James Franco directed The Disaster Artist, but I'm pleased to say the film ended up meeting my expectations and then some.

First things first: James Franco's performance in this is incredible. His accent and mannerisms are a spot-on imitation of Wiseau's, and he manages to make you feel sympathy towards the character too. It's one thing to so directly portray such a unique individual and make doing so incredibly funny, but it's another thing entirely to make him feel (almost) like a real person, and to make you genuinely care for him. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I truly think this performance is worth an Academy Award nomination (fingers crossed).

Everyone else was good too. Dave Franco had a less flashy role than his brother's, sure, playing Greg Sestero, but he did a good job as the more grounded, 'straight man' type character. And some of the casting was genius too- I could list almost everybody, but special mention should go to Josh Hutcherson, Zac Efron, and Jacki Weaver.

Also worth mentioning is how well the cast and crew recreated the look of the original The Room- the mannerisms of the actors, the set design, the lighting, the camera-work- it's all perfect. It makes the film an impressive technical achievement in many regards; not simply a funny film with inspired casting and good performances.

As for downsides? There aren't a whole bunch. Perhaps the most significant is that this may not have a great deal of appeal beyond those who've watched and loved The Room already. I'm sure it would still function as a good film, but it might lack something for those who aren't already indoctrinated into the cult of The Room. Other nitpicks I could think of may be that the film is fairly conventional in terms of plot- not a ton of surprises here (other than maybe a few cameos throughout). And it feels a tiny bit longer than just over 100 minutes- but again, that's a nitpick. I am more or less struggling to think of too much that I personally didn't like with this film.

So as a long time fan of The Room, this is about as good as I hoped it could be. I hope I'm wrong in my views that the audience for this will be limited, and that it does have appeal beyond hardcore fans of The Room. And hey, if there's enough buzz behind it to allow for James Franco to earn an Oscar nomination, then that would be fantastic.

And deserved (in my opinion).

This is one of the most pleasant surprises of the film year so far, and second only to Tim Burton's Ed Wood in the (admittedly probably non-existent) sub-genre of films about making terrible movies.

If you've ever watched The Room, or even just watched some of its scenes on Youtube, make sure you don't miss this one.

"The Disaster Artist" (2017 release; 103 min.) brings the real-life story of how the 2003 cult movie "The Room" got made. As the movie opens, a number of current day movie stars, including Kirsten Bell, Adam Scott. J.J. Abrams and others gush about the virtues of this "so bad, that it's so good" movie. We then shift to "San Francisco, July 13, 1998" when Tommy Wiseau and Greg Sestero meet at an acting class and strike up a friendship. Later that year, they decide on w him to move to Los Angeles, where Tommy somehow has kept an apartment. Tommy and Greg pursue their dream of becoming an actor (inspired by James Dean, among others), but when it's becoming clear that nobody wants to do anything with them, they decide to make their own film... At this point, we are 15 min. into the movie, but to tell you more of the plot would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.

Couple of comments: this movie is a labor of love primarily by James Franco, who directs, co-produces, and stars as Tommy. His brother Dave co-stars as Greg. The real life story is so beyond anything believable that if this were a work of fiction, it would immediately be dismissed as just that. Let me state upfront that I have not seen "The Room" (although I see it frequently listed as a midnight listing at my local art-house theater). From everything we witness in "The Disaster Artist", Tommy is so incredibly inapt yet convinced of his own talent, it reminds me of those American Idol auditions back in the day where certain contestants think they are super good yet they were horrible. Another similarity is the Meryl Streep movie "Florence Foster Jenkins" (about a real life wealthy NY socialite who thinks she sings well and nobody dares to contradict her, leading to a notorious Carnegie Hall concert). James Franco does an outstanding job in the lead role, and I'm going to predict that he will get a number of nominations in the upcoming awards season. It isn't until the very end of the movie (when scenes from the original "The Room" are played in parallel with the recreated scenes for "The Disaster Artist") that one gets a sense how incredibly meticulous Franco has been in recreating them down to the last detail. Absolutely amazing. Last but certainly not least, the movie features a bunch of other well-known performers, some of them in very noticeable roles (such as Seth Rogen and Alison Brie), and others in "blink and you'll miss it" roles (such as Sharon Stone, Zoey Deutch, Zac Efron, etc.). In an early scene of the movie, when Tommy and Greg become unlikely friends, they head over to Tommy's place, and Greg notices a prominent sign on the apartment's wall: "I Do Not Choose To Be a Common Man". Whatever you think of Tommy, he certainly is not your "common man"!

"The Disaster Artist" opened this weekend at my local art-house theater here in Cincinnati on not one, but two screens (a rarity). The Friday evening screening where i saw this at was attended very nicely, I;'m happy to report. The audience roared with laughter on many occasions. The positive word-of-mouth this movie surely will generate makes it likely to have long legs at the box office (at least within the art-house theater circuit). If you are in the mood for something truly different, I encourage you to check out "The Disaster Artist", be it in the theater, on VOD, or eventually on DVD/Blu-ray.