The Disaster Artist – Review

My missus loves James Franco/Seth Rogan/Paul Rudd/Johana Hill/Bill Hader and other actors that generally tend to star in the same sort of films; This is the End, Why Him, Knocked Up, The Interview, 40 Year Old Virgin, The Night Before, etc etc. These actors tend to star in films together (not all of them and not all the time) and so whenever a new one comes out, I always take my wife to see it.
The Disaster Artist stars James Franco, his brother, Seth Rogan, and even Judd Apatow (who directs a lot of these films like This is 40 and what not), and although I had no idea what it was about, I knew that we would end up seeing it regardless.
Now not all of the above mentioned films are good, however The Disaster Artist is brilliant. We really enjoyed it and were gripped the whole way through. I found myself doing research once it had finished into the life of Tommy Wiseasu.

Let me just say that this part of the review has spoilers, so if you wanted to go into this without knowing anything then stop reading after this point, as this was the way that I watched the film and I was amazed by the story, even though prior to watching it, I had no idea what the hell it was about.
However, knowing some of what the film is about is actually really interesting and I feel would be good at drawing you into it and wanting to know more.
Either way I will say that the film was great and definitely one that you should check out for a funny/intriguing tale of mystery and the creation of the best worst film ever made! (not THIS film, but more will be explained in a moment… if you carry on reading that is).

It is difficult to pin point why The Disaster Artist is one of the best films that came out in 2017. I think it is just because it is a true story, and an incredibly random one at that. Let me explain and it might be easier to go from there (prior to this film, I had not heard of Tommy Wiseau or watch the film; The Room).
So, James Franco directs and stars in this as Tommy and his brother; Dave Franco, plays actor and writer of the book that this film is based on; Greg Sestero.
Greg is a wannabe actor in San Francisco who unexpectedly meets Tommy Wiseau. Tommy is a long haired, pale faced man of unknown origins and age, with a strange accent (it sounds Eastern European, but he calms to be from New Orleans). In fact Tommy’s past is completely shrouded in mystery and if you look on his Wikipedia page, under the ‘Early Life’ section it states that no one really knows much about his past, and considering that he is still alive today, it makes it all the most bizarre.
Anyway, Greg asks Tommy for some acting advice, thinking Tommy knows what he is doing in the acting class that they both are attending and the two of them become friends. Greg wants to make his dreams come true of becoming a Hollywood actor on the big screen… and it turns out that Tommy has another apartment in Los Angeles and that Greg can stay there with him, and just like that the two of them head out to L.A (to the disapproval of Greg’s mother).
Both attempt to make it as actors in Hollywood, and while Greg manages to get an agent and get small parts here and there, Tommy has no luck at all, even in the auditions everyone thinks that he is a complete joke, laughing at his accent and his responses about where he is from. They even mock his appearance saying he looks like a vampire.

Annoyed at the business that is show business, Tommy is angry. Greg jokingly says that they wish they could just make their own movie and Tommy thinks that this is a fantastic idea and decides that he is going to write and direct it. He spends months/years writing a screenplay for a movie titled; The Room, and once it is done, sets out to make his new dream come true to turn this script into a film.
It turns out that Tommy actually has a bottomless pit of a bank account (hence the apartment in L.A and another in San Fran) and buys all the equipment, the studio time, the crew, and pays the actors (giving Greg one of the main roles, however Tommy himself is playing the lead). He basically finances the entire film and it turns out that the film costs over 6 million dollars.
It seems that he has no problem whatsoever paying for it, which again makes us wonder where the hell he got all his money from, but to this day… no one knows!

So Tommy and Greg, under Tommy’s directing, try their best to make this film, however, Tommy’s acting is just so terrible that it becomes near enough impossible, but since he is funding the film, the crew decide to just carry on regardless, because at the end of the day, they are getting paid for this crap.
Tommy does hilarious things like taking 60 takes to get a simple scene done, and even once it is done, it is still god awful. He also spends a load of money making an alleyway set, despite the fact that the set is based off a real life alleyway just feet away from the set, making the crew wonder why he just didn’t film it in the real one. He buys the camera equipment, instead of renting it, which is what I believe real movie makers do (or did at the time?). He also takes both camera types, which were available at the time, despite the fact that they both need different types of lighting to work, but Tommy doesn’t care. He seems to think that if he can throw enough cash at everything, he can make the greatest film of all time.

Tommy and Greg’s relationship comes to blows when Greg moves out of Tommy’s place and moves in with his girlfriend (he acquires over the length of the film) and Tommy does not take it well. He must have some kind of abandonment issues as he takes it really badly, saying that everyone is betraying him, just like they always do, so something in his past must have contributed to this, but again, we may never know as Tommy, in real life, is so secretive (no one still knows his exact age!)

It turns out, once it is finished, that The Room is a complete piece of turd. The acting is terrible, the script is bad, the shots and filming is all over the place. Certain things, like the mother of one of the characters having cancer and mentioning that she is dying, never comes back in the story again! The film is just all over the place.
At the premier, everyone thinks that it is some kind of joke and are practically rolling on the floor with the laughter. Tommy thinks that they are mocking him because to him, The Room is a piece of his soul out for all to see, however Greg makes him realise that even though the film is rubbish, he has given the audience such a good time whilst watching it, bringing a bit of joy to their lives, making Tommy pretend that this was his intention all along.

The Room went on to becoming a cult classic with the idea that it was so bad it is good, and is now regarding as one of the best worst films ever made.
It has peeked my interest and myself and my wife are going to sit down one night and check it out.

At the end of THIS film, the beginning of the credits show us side by side comparisons of James Franco and the rest of the casts’ renditions of scenes from The Room next to the real thing, and I was amazed at how spot on they really got it. Especially Tommy Wiseasu himself and how perfectly James Franco plays this peculiar character.

Overall The Disaster Artist is one of the best films I saw in 2017. It was funny, insightful and intriguing enough that it left me thinking about it days after I have finished, which is one of the things that tell me it WAS in fact a good film. Recently, I have watched films and forgotten them an hour later, but now I am finding myself wanting to know more about this mysterious Tommy Wiseasu and reading theories on how exactly he made his millions. Check it out.