REVIEW: The Disaster Artist

Every once in a while, a movie comes along that changes everything. Something magical, that captures the hearts and imaginations of people from all walks of life, all around the world. When it comes to the realm of "so bad it's good", few movies can compare to 2003's The Room, a film so spellbindingly inept, it's been called the Citizen Kane of bad movies. There have been many pretenders, films that aim for the gutter in an attempt to score ironic laughs with bad performances and cheap production values, but they all lack the one thing that truly makes The Room special. See, there's a trick to making a film that ends up being so bad it's good; the key is to do it by accident. The Room was born of passion, not parody, everything you see on screen is the result of people unironically trying their best, yet failing miserably anyway. It's this sense of raw effort that people latch onto, that oh-so human feeling of seeing our best efforts laid to waste, that makes The Room so engaging. Anyone can give a bad performance, but the fact that the person giving the performance is a man like Tommy Wiseau, an enigmatic cartoon character who truly believes with all his heart that he's the next Tennessee Williams, is what makes The Room work in the way that it does. There's no cynicism to it whatsoever, and the cult of personality that's formed around it in the years since its release has finally come to a head with The Disaster Artist.

Taking place over the course of several years, the film tells the story of how Greg Sestero (the author of the book on which the film is based and co-star of The Room, played here by Dave Franco) came to meet the man who would change his life forever, Tommy Wiseau (played uncannily by his brother, James Franco). Young and insecure, Greg finds himself fascinated with Tommy's fearlessness on stage (despite his clear lack of talent); the two form an oddball friendship and move to Los Angeles with dreams of making it big in Hollywood. After striking out time and time again, Tommy decides to simply make his own movie; his personal magnum opus, a classical drama known as The Room. 

It's obvious from the get-go that The Disaster Artist is very much a passion project for James Franco; much like The Room itself, this is a film where the director is also the producer and the producer is also the star. I've also heard that apparently Franco directed this in-character as Tommy Wiseau (how that worked out is anyone's guess). There's a clear admiration for the source material, almost to the point that it interferes with the story. James Franco is a dead-on Tommy Wiseau, but there are also times where this whole thing feels just like an excuse for him to play this role (such as the tremendously fun but somewhat pointless montage during the credits, where the Disaster Artist cast recreates scenes from The Room). Thankfully, the focus of the film tends to revolve moreso around Greg and Tommy's weirdly codependent relationship than the actual making of The Room itself. This is where the film really shines, in showcasing what happened behind the camera rather than what happened in front of it. While it's certainly fun to see people reenact famous scenes and moments from such an iconic trainwreck, it doesn't really bring anything new to the table. If I wanted to watch The Room, I'd watch The Room; it's when we gain extra insight into the emotions and motivations of the people responsible for such an infamous bomb that things really start to get interesting.

There's a detail in this film that really resonated with me after having watched it; in The Room, there's a character known as Denny (played originally by Philip Haldiman, and here by Josh Hutcherson). Of every weird, inexplicable thing in The Room, Denny may have been my favorite. He's an awkward wimp of indeterminate age who treats Johnny (Wiseau's character) like a surrogate father. He shows up out of nowhere and it's really never explained what his and Johnny's hilariously uncomfortable relationship is actually supposed to be. However, having seen the way The Disaster Artist portrays Tommy and Greg's relationship, the character of Denny (a confused, insecure young man whom Tommy Wiseau's character takes under his wing out of the goodness of his heart) suddenly starts to make a lot more sense. We see the parallels between reality and Wiseau's incomprehensible fiction, and it's details like this that really exemplify what I wanted this movie to be.

The only problem is that we end up seeing these events unfold through the eyes of Greg Sestero, rather than Tommy Wiseau. No offense to Greg, but I feel like even he'd agree that his side of the story is likely far less interesting than Tommy's. Given how secretive the real Tommy Wiseau is (to this day, his age and country of origin remain a mystery), we don't get a lot of his perspective over the course of the story; our two leads end up having very little screentime apart from one another, so it feels like the main characters aren't exactly explored to their fullest potential. Little insights that give a sort of method to the madness of The Room are far more fascinating and engaging (both in a biographical and a narrative sense) than simple recreations of scenes. This problem is exasperated by the two lead actors; being real-life siblings, they exhibit excellent chemistry, yet I couldn't help but feel that Dave Franco was constantly getting overshadowed by his older brother. It can't be easy to show off one's screen presence when sharing the stage with a character as emotive and bombastic as James Franco's take on Tommy Wiseau, but Dave's range still felt, for the most part, lacking (despite an admittedly respectable effort).

Really, despite enjoying this movie for what it was, I can't help but feel as though it was weighed down by its association with the real-life Tommy Wiseau. Unlike something like Ed Wood, the main subject of The Disaster Artist was very much alive and well at the time of production, meaning that Wiseau was involved in promoting this film (as well as putting together his post-credits cameo scene). As such, it almost feels like The Disaster Artist pulls its punches when it comes to the less-savory aspects of Tommy's character (especially when compared to its source material). There's a lot of implicit ugliness with Tommy; we're never sure where he gets his money (but can assume it's through less than legitimate means), he's shown to be emotionally unstable and manipulative, as well as being prone to aggressive outbursts while constantly mistreating his actors and his crew. Even with all this in mind, the film still frames him as a sympathetic, misunderstood dreamer. This approach worked well in Ed Wood (which all but ignored the titular character's steady decline into poverty, pornography, and alcoholism), since that portrait of a hopelessly flawed filmmaker took on an almost fairytale-like tone. With The Disaster Artist, things are presented with a much more naturalistic approach in terms of cinematography, performance, and atmosphere, so this kind of flattering portrayal ends up feeling somewhat forced and out of place. I can't fault Franco and company for wanting to be civil in their depiction of Tommy Wiseau (considering he gave the film his blessing), but I can't help feeling that a more realistic, flawed portrayal would have been infinitely more interesting, as well as much more in-line with what the rest of the movie had to offer.

Historical inaccuracies and dubious romanticization aside, I still managed to really get something out of  James Franco's take on the creation of The Room. There's something classically compelling about a character who strives fruitlessly for an unattainable ideal, only to fall short thanks to their own personal faults and flaws. Tommy is completely oblivious to how inept he is; as far as he's concerned, he'd be the next James Dean or Alfred Hitchcock if only the rest of the world would stop getting in his way. We see how persecuted he feels, constantly failing in real life, and how that translates to everyone "betraying" Johnny in The Room. Eventually, we start to understand just what he means when he takes the stage at the premiere during the film's climax and declares in his broken, unplaceable accent, "this my movie, and this my life". What's been known up to this point as one of the most absurdly hilarious things ever committed to film suddenly starts to look a lot more like therapy for its writer/director/producer/star, and regardless of how accurate it is to real-life events (realistically speaking, we may never know the full story about Tommy Wiseau and The Room), it still manages to take one of the funniest bad movies ever made and use it to generate compelling character drama. The character of Tommy Wiseau exhibits such an undeniably human blend of blind optimism and raw ego that you can't help but root for him (even if the real-life events were far less of a feel-good story than what we see here). This all comes to a head at the premiere, when we finally see the finished product, the film that all of these characters have struggled and suffered for; you find yourself laughing along with the characters in the movie (because come on, it's The Room), but you've also come to understand the passion that Tommy had for his vision. Every chuckle comes at an emotional price, and I found myself feeling surprisingly sorry for someone who I should, by all accounts, hold very little sympathy for.

If you're looking for a documentary that tells the untold story of The Room, you're not going to find what you're looking for here. The goal of The Disaster Artist is not to unravel the mystery surrounding Tommy Wiseau. While I do wish it had perhaps focused on more of the inherently interesting aspects of the true story, this is still a tremendously entertaining parable about an outcast and his art. There's something magical about making movies; the vision, passion, and struggle that goes into creating something from nothing and committing it to film. This is a feeling that The Disaster Artist totally understands. Sure, I would have liked a bit more in terms of style, substance, and focus, but the end result is still a hilariously enjoyable time that I see myself revisiting many times down the line. Whether or not you've ever seen The Room, you'd be remiss not to give this one a look.