Amongst all the horrendous films put on screen, leaving you baffled to how it was remotely acceptable for them to get published, few have been as fascinatingly misconducted in practically every single way and been as strangely thoroughly enjoyable for the sheer fact of how reverse it is to the rules of a decent film than The Room. Directed by the infamous Tommy Wiseau: director, producer, and lead actor in this nearly-inhuman production that’s been as beloved and cherished amongst audiences for every unintentional reason as the N64 Superman video-game: the acting being as stilted as George Lucas’ writing arm after getting pushed by maniacal fans to bring out more of the everlasting same, the hilariously unfitting music, the writing being so incoherently awful that every line is just as iconic as one from Shakespeare. It’s a rollercoaster of hilariously unnecessary and sometimes even downright creepy and almost alien scenarios such as infamous parts like Tommy asking his friend how his sex life is out of nowhere, getting every single breath and movement wrong in the beloved ‘I did not hit her!’ scene (even after 32 takes), him and some of his fully-grown adult friends getting fully dressed in tuxedos just to throw around an American football, as well as cutting off several sub-plots halfway through or just after they were established, most likely due to many of the staff deciding to leave the production halfway through due to it being so incoherently horrendous, which is understandable enough!
There is, however, one thing particularly admirable about Tommy Wiseau amongst his abominable acting and writing skills, his misconduct of his own staff and an ego as obnoxious as Adam Sandler’s film career: he refuses to give in no matter how much he’s ridiculed, which is quite admirable come to think of it.
This probably what inspired James Franco to create the recent hit film, The Disaster Artist: a complete recreation of how Tommy Wiseau, and his good friend Greg Sestero, met and got to make their own film. Looking at James Franco’s film-directing career, he hasn’t been all that successful, usually ending up with mediocre or downright bad productions such as As I Lay Dying and The Broken Tower. However, given he’s produced over 30 films in his career, it's impressive to say the least to just how determined and unstoppable he is despite thrashings in the box office, as though he’s one of the few who truly understands and appreciates Wiseau’s non-existent self-conscious and self-motivations to succeed without giving a damn about the consistent ridicule, not to mention he’s the writer and the main role as Tommy Wiseau in the film, just like the real thing!
In a short summary, The Disaster Artist is a near-perfect tribute to the cult-classic film as well as it’s producer as a whole, from capturing Wiseau’s iconic, unusual quirks with his baffling acting in the movie to his incomparable mannerisms in real life with Greg and his crew, while standing on it’s own as a film for those who’ve never see the source material as a hilarious ride down a man’s path to reach him and his friend’s goal, only to achieve it in the opposite manner and decide to adapt to this oddly-brilliant means of success.
Greg Sestero (played by Dave Franco) finds himself without a chance to join the huge competition of the acting industry due to being a terrible actor, finding it impossible to escape into any role. He ends up finding Tommy Wiseau (James Franco) who turns out to be a perfect ying to his yang: he’s just as awful as him but throws himself out there and puts on an over-the-top catastrophe without a hint of embarrassment. The two end up being friends and move to Los Angeles to kick-start their movie career, despite countless things clearly being off about Tommy: he has millions of dollars of income without any clue of where it comes from being given, he claims he’s Gregg’s age when he’s clearly at least 15 years older, his complete lack of social positives making him an awful person to hang out with (not only due to his unpredictable, outbursty behaviour but he’s also a complete tyrant as a director) and it’s not even clear if he’s ever seen a movie in his life (and given how The Room turns out, that’s probably the case).
After getting rejected by countless companies, including a hilariously painful scene where Wiseau horrifically performs ‘To be or not to be’ at full volume in a restaurant to try and impress a big-time film producer (the largest example of his anti-self-conscious persona), the duo end up deciding to make their own movie.
This is when the film kicks into gear. Tommy writes his masterpiece, even adding a ‘possible’ idea of a vampire scene, taking note after an acting tutor comments he’d be better off as a Dracula or Frankenstein than a hero while even slipping in an easter egg of Wiseau actually wanting a preposterous twist in the movie where Johnny turns out to be a vampire!
After getting a cast of actors and crew together and uselessly cramming in his £6 million budget on things like 2 whole sets of camera equipment and building and green-screening sets that bogglingly could’ve been shot on location (all true to source material, to which sparks some hilarious reactions from his crew) Tommy reveals his true reckless, assoholic self, such as putting a personal toilet in the filming room, demanding a horrendously cringy sex scene (still completely loyal to source material), refusing to put on the ac in a dangerously stuffy environment and just generally having a go at everyone he works with, successfully making you hate him yet sort of love him at the same time.
Obviously you’d have to have seen the movie to get the brilliant references here that not only recreate countless infamous scenes from the Room that are played hauntingly accurately (the ‘why are you so hysterical’ line from the Lisa here is practically a mirror image to the original) but the parts where Wiseau sets out and advises (or rather, demands) things play out, such as ordering the drug dealer to be as ridiculously over-the-top as possible (which makes it all the more gold how it ends up being the best acted piece in the actual movie) adds a whole new layer of insight and appreciation to the hilarity of the original scenes themselves.
If there’s one thing about the film that could’ve been better, it’s Wiseau’s character as a whole. Don’t get me wrong, James’ acting is great, but his writing is kind of tugging behind with his character. He relies pretty much only on running gags with taking full advantage of Wiseau’s obnoxious manner in his film and blending it into his actual life and little moments of friendship with Greg which is, again, pretty well done. But what we’re missing is actual depth to Wiseau’s character such as his ambitions for acting or his true desires for his life of film to give his humour more payoff. Also, while the part near the finale where Tommy and Greg have a little scrap-out of who Tommy is given how horrible he’s been to everyone seems more like a sarcastic parody of the typical emotional buddy breakdown, but it doesn’t really feel like it in the end, given it does have a big impact on the payoff feel of the duo’s smashing finale show so it has that sort of uncomfortable feel to it, looking back on it. Still, the finale with a cringe-fest of the audience realising how awful the final product is only to gradually morph into a laughter-booming cheer-fest over what it truly is is still damn hearty stuff, despite it feeling somewhat rushed, as it could’ve explored more of Tommy’s character when he got down and thought the audience hated it before Greg convinced him otherwise.
Seeing someone so hilariously unfitting for a role is funny enough, but seeing how it was laid out by himself, giving him infinite opportunity but ending up overestimating his talents and accepting the opposite positive reaction from his audience makes you feel and cheer for him all the more as well as James Franco with his similar position to Wiseau with this almost first-person hyperbolic representation of his status, finally making a great film while putting on an actual solidly credible performance of Wiseau, which is an absolute god-tier achievement come to think of it (not to mention that little comparison in the credits scene), capturing everything with his iconic voice, awkward laugh, and body language. Well, maybe apart from the cheap wig and the absence of 60% of his lines being dubbed.
In conclusion, The Disaster Artist is a great tribute to the infamous hilarocity, while also proving to be a solid story of two friends’ road to success but with the execution of the ending prevail of the two being completely inverted of what they expected makes it all the more cleverly done. All in all, it didn’t end up TEARING ME APART, LISA and make me FED UP WITH THIS WORLD but I still highly recommend that you DON’T TOUCH ME, MOTHERFUCKER, GET OUT!
86/100
