Review: The Disaster Artist

The Disaster Artist (2017) - James Franco

       If you are at all familiar with The Room (and you should be, especially if you saw The Disaster Artist, and especially if you're reading this review) we've all heard the one-two sentence pitch about why we all need to see the, arguably, worst and most fun movie to watch ever: "It's the Citizen Kane of bad movies!" And yeah, it is, I guess. The Room is the mutilated and terrifying lovechild of enigmatic weirdo/vampire Tommy Wisseau, written (sort of), directed (sort of), and starring (sort of) himself as the all-American (read: very Eastern European) hero of his own Tennessee Williams dramatic makings. As someone who used to love watching MST3K and still actively watches new episodes of The Walking Dead, I definitely know the value of watching shitty movies for the sake of having a good time. And The Room is an amazing example of truly awful, terrible, hilarious filmmaking. It's so stilted, strange, odd, and unlike anything that exists within real life, that it actually becomes endlessly fascinating. In fact, The Room itself is so much more interesting than the movie James Franco made about its production. And that's not a great thing.
       The Disaster Artist, directed by and starring Franco as Tommy, with his younger brother Davey as Tommy's real life best friend and Room co-star, Greg Sestero, is based on the book "The Disaster Artist," written by real-life Greg Sestero (kind of) and Tom Bissell (mostly). It chronicles the two's friendship, beginning in acting class and then moving to LA, where they finally decided to take getting famous into their own hands, which led to Tommy writing "The Room." Unfortunately (or, as history would have it, fortunately for us), the movie shoot was a complete nightmare (a...disaster?...if you will? Smug chuckling!), littered with insane directorial choices, complete days wasted to Tommy not remembering lines or being late to set, and lots of crew turnover. The book which the movie was based on is both fascinating and illuminating, helping make sense of the aborted shrimpfest that is happening on screen.

       Before I go any further, I think it's necessary to clarify that I thoroughly enjoyed myself while I was watching this movie. As a devout Room fan and Tommy Wisseau conspiracy theorist (related to Rasputin and is actually hundreds of years old but is ALSO just an idiot), I couldn't help but be amused, hell, downright tickled, at seeing some of my favorite current actors and comedians re-enacting lines from the worst/funniest thing I've ever seen in my life. Josh Hutcherson as Denny? Yes, please. Nathan Fielder as Peter the therapist? Duh, yes. Zac Efron as CHRIS-R? THANKYOUYESPLEASE. And James Franco is pitch perfect as Tommy, clearly having spent months embodying the weirdo's accents and mannerisms down to an art form. And hey, Davey Franco is there too! He's sweet and earnest (cuz he's Davey Franco, you see). The movie is funny, well-acted, and definitely isn't cynical. It has a sweet approach to the naivete that Tommy brings to everything he tries to do professionally. At it's core the movie is about following your dream, even if your dreams are kind of dumb. And I can dig that.
       So then, what? The movie's biggest problem is essentially also its greatest strength: It's a great impression of The Room. It's a great impression of Tommy Wisseau, and the movie does such a good job at doing both of those things that while it was playing I didn't even realize it, but shortly after it crept up on me: The movie barely exists outside of impressions. Yes, it is entertaining as fuck to watch James Franco ham it up as the strange shit-auteur, but what about all the other crazy shit he did? Like walking around naked, screaming at actresses, refusing to bring the cast and crew water? Sure that's all brought up in the film (like it was in the book) but only so we can go, "oh boy, Tommy sure is crazy!" Certain crew members are fired and replaced (which also really happened) but there's not more than a shrug given to it. It's an extremely consequence free movie, untethered from so many aspects of what it actually means to make a movie.

       The thing that the book, The Disaster Artist, had going for it was the co-writing (which I strongly believe Bissell wrote basically the entire book by himself because you can quickly tell the real life Greg Sestero is almost as questionable a human as Tommy) of Tom Bissell. He adds so much pathos and understanding in the text of the book that Franco is either unable or uninterested in showing in film. The book, almost despite Sestero's attempts to make himself seem cool and relatable, does so much more work at explaining why the two ended up staying together as friends/partners for so long. It makes both their strange idiosyncrasies make more sense. In the movie we're kind of just left with, well, Greg was a nice guy who felt bad for Tommy.
       But the movie alone doesn't often give us a lot of reason to actually like Tommy other than James Franco does such a great job playing him. They just make him endlessly petty to continue serving the story. And hell, that is really what happened, but the movie doesn't give us much insight past, "Tommy is insecure." Well so are all of us.
       So, look, if you love The Room, and you have thrown your fair share of spoons at the movie screen, there is a great chance you will absolutely love this movie. If you just want to see James Franco act batshit crazy for two hours, you will 100% LOVE this movie. If you are truly interested in understanding these people as more than just pitch-perfect impressions of a super funny, awful cult movie, it might not be the most successful form of this story.

Grade: 9 out of 10 unbelievably entertaining impressions.