The Disaster Artist 3 out of 4 stars rated R (for language throughout and some sexuality/nudity)
By Kyle Osborne
I was trying to describe the movies The Room and The Disaster Artist to a friend who lives more than 10,000 miles away and speaks English as a second language. It went like this:
Me: In 2003, this eccentric guy from parts unknown, Tommy Wiseau, made the worst movie in the modern era. It cost 6 million dollars and, just like Wiseau, no one knew where the money came from.
Friend: silence
Me: The movie was so bad that it became a cult classic. People would go to the movie to laugh at it and to throw plastic spoons and inflatable footballs at the screen. In unison.
Friend: Is the movie a comedy?
Me: No, not intentionally. Anyway, the story behind the guy who made this movie was so inspiring that they made a real Hollywood movie about the making of The Room, called The Disaster Artist.
Friend: Why do people laugh at the movie if it is not a comedy.
Me: because it’s so awful!
Friend: Silence.
Ah, yes, we Americans. We find laughs where they aren’t intended and in The Disaster Artist we unexpectedly find a warm story of friendship tucked into (this time intentional) comedic narrative.
The Disaster Artist was directed by James Franco, who also plays Wiseau with uncanny accuracy—he looks like him, he sounds like him. The story of the making of the 2003 movie does more than just poke fun at the participants, which would feel more like bullying than gentle ribbing. Instead, Franco finds a kind of platonic love story in the friendship between Wiseau and the actor Greg Sestero (played by Franco’s actual younger brother Dave Franco) a budding actor who hitches his wagon to Wiseau.
Together, these two showbiz dreamers head south from San Francisco to La La Land. Again, money is apparently no object for Wiseau, and the two movie in to an apartment that Wiseau owns in Los Angeles.
The many, many ups and downs, mostly downs, of filmmaking are set up like bowling pins and come crashing down with regularity. If the making of The Room had gone off without a hitch, there would be no Disaster Artist movie. In other words, the narrative is obvious and pre-determined, but there is a good natured-ness employed by Franco that keeps us rooting for the clueless duo.
Several smaller roles are key—notably Seth Rogan as the man who directed the The Room, mostly without the ability to offer input. He and the crew are slaves to Wiseau’s vision—after all, he’s the one footing the bill.
Did I like it? Yeah, I liked it. Is it a Top Ten of 2017 movie for me? No. Here’s why:
To this day, the real Tommy Wiseau is mostly unknowable. Some investigative reporting in the years since 2003 has turned up only a few clues about him. He lived in New Orleans. His accent seems to peg him as being Polish. To this day, no one knows where the money came from, or what he was like as a kid or…well, we don’t learn much about him at all, other than he was pursued his dream of making a movie with unyielding passion and, apparently, no clue that he lacked talent in every facet of making movies. To me, that makes this movie, by definition, one that doesn’t go as deep character-wise as I’d like.
On the other hand, this character is almost cheerfully devoid of any ability as a writer, actor, producer or director, and maybe that’s why we root for him in the end; he never gives up on his dream. Most of us would have the self-awareness to put our efforts and money elsewhere.
When the Franco brothers are in the front row of the theater, watching a premiere that was paid for by them, their eyes twinkle. And that is thrilling to even the most cynical among us.
And one more thing: I saw The Room for the very first time about a week before screening the Disaster Artist. I know that many will disagree, but I believe seeing The Room is crucial to fully enjoying The Disaster Artist. Trust me on this, context is everything.
You can find locations for screenings of The Room at: http://www.theroommovie.com/
Kyle Osborne