The Disaster Artist (A24) [Movie Review]

There’s certainly something to be said about having the courage and ambition to relentlessly stick to your creative vision despite the odds, for better and for worse. Tommy Wiseau’s The Room has gained both fame and infamy for being so awful it’s awesome. The Disaster Artist leverages all of that to become a comedy that’s very smart while being ironic, honest while being humours, and has a heart without being sentimental.

It’s considered by movie fans across the globe to be the epitome of golden trash, but the brilliant stroke of storytelling behind The Disaster Artist is that it focuses on the stories and rumours that surround the making of the disasterpiece that become the cult classic audiences love to hate and hate to love.

James Franco makes the movie work by emotionally framing it within the context of a classic underdog story about Tommy Wiseau and his best friend Greg Sestero (Dave Franco) trying to make it in Hollywood. After dealing with a barrage of professional and personal rejection, they decide to pull a Fleetwood Mac and “Go Their Own Way”.

Wiseau writes the script for The Room to model himself as an actor after James Dean in Rebel Without A Cause and after Alfred Hitchcock and Orson Welles as a director. He writes his best friend a secondary lead role, and they begin to book equipment, a crew, a set and make their movie come together. Of course, when things fall apart personally and professionally for Wiseau and Sestero, they come together at the premiere. They both watch the audience explode with joy and laughter at the movie in all the ways they never expect.

Everyone can cheer for the heroes in a classic underdog story because we can all relate to having a dream we would love to see come true. Things get interesting the deeper we delve into the mysterious life of Wiseau and his ideas that are beyond eccentric. Somehow he mysteriously comes up with the $6 million dollar budget for the film without revealing the source of his income. Wiseau never reveals where he’s actually from, how old he is or anything about his family.

James Franco has turned out arguably the best work of his career as an actor in 2017 between his turn as Tommy Wiseau in this and the Martino twins in HBO’s The Deuce. On top of that, Dave Franco proves he has the chops to believably carry a film as a leading man and it’s cool to see Seth Rogen not try to be front and centre in every scene he’s in. One of the really amazing things about this movie is that it’s written by the duo who wrote 500 Days of Summer and The Fault in Our Stars, how’s that for versatility?

Ultimately, the film is a great message to anyone who wants to be creative. The film proves that despite your art not being perceived the way you hoped, if you work hard enough and truly believe in yourself, your work can find an audience. Whether anyone wants to admit it or not, and regardless of what they think of The Room, it did make Wiseau an international film figure, for better and for worse.

Directed by: James Franco
Starring: James Franco, Dave Franco, Seth Rogen, Alison Brie, Ari Graynor, Josh Hutcherson, Jacki Weaver
Distributed by: A24
Release Date: December 1, 2017 (United States)
Run Time: 103 minutes

Check out a The Disaster Artist official movie trailer