The Disaster Artist Review

 

In 2008, I was watching a YouTube show called “The Nostalgia Critic”, he reviewed a film considered by many to be the worst movie ever made. It was called The Room. Years later, actor Greg Sestero wrote a book called “The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside ‘The Room’, the Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made”. The book detailed extensively on the making of the film, and the meeting between him and the enigma himself Tommy Wiseau. When word got out that it will be adapted to a movie, I was all for it. Having read the book to prepare myself and really get closure on what happened behind the scenes of The Room, the movie did an adequate job to really show just how filming went. And the unlikeliest paring ever conceived. SPOILERS will appear. 

1. Greg and Tommy

        Since the book was mostly around Greg’s experience, the film covers both sides of the main characters. James Franco wrote, direct, and starred to be the oddest human ever existed. Tommy is taking the same acting classes along with Greg, who is played by James’ small brother Dave. Both immediately hit it, and they go down to Los Angeles to chase their dreams to be famous. We get the moments where we see them getting the photo shoots and auditioning. The main point is that Greg manages to get everything. While Tommy is just struggling and completely full of delusion. 

        The dynamic is really something since, whenever something goes right with Greg, Tommy lashes out at him full of jealousy and smugness. To me, it feels like Tommy wanted to be better than Sestero in every possible way. Such as when Greg tells him that he got some offers, Tommy says that he is being coached by a legendary acting teacher. Which Greg’s girlfriend Amber says that the teacher has been dead. 

        There really is no way to imagine in actual life that these two would somehow be real friends. In the book and film, it explicitly states that Greg was in his late teens while Tommy is, well he doesn’t really reveal just how old he is. I’ll go on a tangent with him after this part. It feels like the dynamics and synergy between them really benefit the film because the actors are literal brothers. So when the drama really hits, no way does it ever feel forced in the least bit. Especially when Greg gets frustrated with Wiseau due to him costing a chance to appear in a TV show. 

2. Tommy Wiseau 

        Nobody could’ve done a tolerable job to portray this guy than James Franco. Just the way he talks, how he looks, his wardrobe, it’s like he’s an alien desperately attempting to be human. One of the things that is questionable, which I’ll give the film this since it’s entirely the point, is to make him be mysterious. Tommy explicitly tells Greg to not tell anyone about him. In context, it’s really a question as to how he has two apartments in Los Angeles and San Francisco. Or just how old he is. Just to put it out there, he’s old, no matter how much lies to Greg’s mom when she asks just what his age is. We get moments when the hair dye lady notices the gray hair on Tommy and when he applies black dye on his hair. 

        His acting is also one thing where you look at it and just laugh at how bad it is. The thing about him is that he quotes a Marlon Brando movie called A Streetcar Named Desire, where Brando’s character yells “Stella”. In context, Brando’s Stanley screams her name due to him abusing Stella in a fight. None of that matters since when Tommy recites or just yells out the name, he puts in a whole lot of energy without the needed context as to why Brando’s character yells out her name. His character is both likeable and just a plain asshole whenever something doesn’t work for him. 

        He’s an asshole when shooting an intimate scene, he sees a pimple on the actress’ body. From just the film, we are led to believe that this is probably an example of who he is if he was hired in a movie. That and the real ironic thing is that he can’t remember his lines. Just the idea that he wants to be an actor and the one scene where it’s just five sentences where he confuses the words is the cherry on top of the film. In actuality, filming that one scene took three hours and 32 takes to get right. The ending of that moment feels relieving because you feel like you’re part of the film crew who is so fed up with Tommy’s eccentricity. 

3. Behind the Scenes Drama

        Much like Living in Oblivion, everything goes wrong with the shoot. With Tommy having total control and being a dictator shows just how chaotic and toxic the filming of the movie went. The film is tame to show just how bad everything went, the book explains that there was a high turnover rate with people handling the cameras to shoot. Which were both 35mm and high-definition cameras. Your guess is good as mine as to why Tommy wanted to shoot in two different footages. 

        The damning thing is that there was an actress who suffered from heat exhaustion due to Tommy not wanting to install air conditioning. Much less give the cast and crew water. His naïve way of directing results in the rift that almost made Greg leave the film and sever ties with Wiseau. I feel like this is one of those things where the book could be made into a television series since there’s way more material that was left out in the film for time constraints. That would be my only negative is that for as much we see everything going south with the filming we could’ve seen more of it. 

4. The Room: The Last Best Worst Film

        After reading the book, it was only an obligation to watch the film the book is based on. I was fortunate enough to have a friend who has a copy of the film and, yeah. The film is bad, Tommy is bad, the story is anything but followable. Characters come and go and it’s one of those things where it’s hilarious and gut busting as to how inept it is. I wish that I would go to a live showing to see the audience throw footballs, spoons, and just jeer at the movie. 

        I feel that this is the last bad movie to ever be called “So Bad, It’s Good”. With social media nowadays, I believe that many people will make a movie which is bad in every possible way to be the next Room where people will be mystified and stupefied by it. The only way people can have fun with a bad movie is to make memes out of it. I believe that if a movie is bad that it will make plenty use of memes to poke fun at dialogue and just every facet with the film. 

        One thing that will always keep me up is if Tommy Wiseau ever had a behind the scenes footage that showed the conversations the film crew had when talking about Tommy. Having that behind the scenes footage would have on full display Wiseau’s method to his madness when he’s either directing or acting. 

5. Overall

        This film is I feel the heir apparent to Ed Wood, a study on two men with acting ambitions who made a movie that will forever be a part of them, for better and worse. James Franco did a great job recreating parts of The Room and just capture the chaotic filming of the bad movie. It makes you think if there’ll be more movies about the making of a bad movie. 

The Disaster Artist gets a four out of five.