The Disaster Artist

Directed By: James FrancoWritten By: Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber (based on the The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, the Greatest Bad Film Ever Made by Greg Sestero and Tom Bissell)Starring: James Franco, Dave Franco,Seth Rogen, Alison Brie, Josh Hutcherson

Oh hai readers. How to

describe a man like Tommy Wiseau. There are still so many fundamental answers which elude us when considering cinema’s most misguided forayer, a man with an untraceable European accent, unaccounted for buckets of wealth, and an age destined to remain unknown. He wears at least two waist belts at all times, with one often resting below his buttocks, has long, stringy, jet black hair—dyed— and a towering, unearthly presence which appears to have derived from the mind of Bram Stoker and then been crossed with the appearance of a pirate. Tommy is the ultimate enigma, a man who will forever remain impossible to place, but what is known beyond doubt is that he possesses not a skerrick of discernible talent for any of cinema’s key fields, and moreover is solely responsible what is surely the worst made movie of all time—The Room.

At the end of James Franco’s The Disaster Artist (which details the making of The Room and the bizarre personality which presided over it), we are told that Tommy left his historically awful debut feature—exhibit A in the court case of whether a movie can in fact be so bad it’s good, which he wrote, directed, produced, and starred in— screening in L.A for two weeks after its release so it would qualify for Oscar consideration. 14 years on from The Room’s initial release, and Wiseau’s seminal disasterpiece might actually find itself at the centre of that long sort after Oscar attention, albeit not in the way that he had likely imagined.

The plaudits are coming courtesy of James Franco, who has assimilated many of those same roles Wiseau previously donned to produce one of cinema’s great ironic triumphs—The Disaster Artist, about the making of the worst movie in history, is one of the year’s best.

But to firstly tell you more about said worst movie ever. What eventuated from The Room has since been dubbed “the Citizen Kane of bad movies”, a cult classic of midnight cinema so fantastically awful that to this day it has viewers puzzled as to the Earthling status of its maker, and screens to the affectionate jeers and hurling of spoons (it’s a thing) of moviegoers the world over. But as Franco informs, The Room’s comedic value was pure happenstance; had the film played as Wiseau had envisioned, it would have been an ambitious treatise on betrayal and friendship, a melodrama in the vein of Tennessee Williams to serve as cinema’s benchmark humanist tragedy. And it might have been, if it weren’t for the deplorable acting, ear-scraping dialogue, impossibly shoddy editing, utter lack of recognisable humanity, disdain for logic and continuity, litany of red herrings and cavalcade of non-sequiturs. “One giant plot hole” Greg Sestero summarised of The Room— and he was in it, his book (also named The Disaster Artist) which recounts Sestero’s time both on set, and in the company of that set’s eccentric leader, serving as Franco’s source material.

Dave Franco plays Greg in The Disaster Artist, a cripplingly timid aspiring actor who has just slinked back into his seat after being scrutinised during an acting class, only to see Tommy (James Franco) take the stage after him. With total abandon and utter self-assurance, Tommy performs the “STELLA!” scene from A Streetcar Named Desire, climbing the constructs of the stage, throwing chairs and filtering Brando’s famous line through his mysterious, near unintelligible accent. Greg, enamoured of Tommy’s fearlessness, approaches him after class in the hope of tapping into that confidence, and so begins our initiation to a character so damned idiosyncratic and peculiar, that he must be real.

Together, Greg and Tommy fawn over James Dean, throw a football (well Greg does, not even Tommy’s approach to football can be distilled), dream of cracking the bigtime in Hollywood, and thus move from San Francisco to Tommy’s LA apartment where they are promptly kicked around town. “I wish we could just make our own movie” a brow-beaten Greg utters one night. Tommy perks up, and with his millions of mysterious dollars in pocket, proceeds to make a film as enigmatic as he.

It’s a story begging to be made light of, the consummate weirdo and his terrible film, but tantamount to The Disaster Artist’s success, Franco treats this narrative with the upmost respect. From this bizarre, wayward real-life tale, comes an ode to creative dreamers—a La La Land for outcasts, which inspects the humanity of Mr Wiseau thoughtfully, seriously, sincerely.

There are plenty of laughs of course, The Room, after all, is inherently funny, and Franco’s uncannily restaged scenes from Wiseau’s original can’t help but follow suit—the lunacy of said scenes and the off-camera lunacy which envelops them punctuated by Seth Rogen’s commentary as the bewildered, onlooking script supervisor, who merely articulates what the rest of us are thinking. But The Disaster Artist is a proper character study, one that endeavours to pull us into the emotional sphere of its misguided protagonist and render him as fully as possible.

On one hand Franco celebrates Tommy Wiseau for his fearlessness and ambition, painting him as the classic underdog who took it upon himself to make his dreams a reality. On the other hand, Tommy is indicted for his cruelty and jealously. “You have a malevolent presence” Tommy is told by one acting instructor (Bob Odenkirk in but one of The Disaster Artist’s many cameos). It’s a cruel criticism, but Franco doesn’t flinch from the glimmer of truth within it. Tommy abuses his power on set, he’s needy, volatile, insulting, and attempts to hold Greg emotionally hostage. There are clear traces of villainy within him, traces for which the character is not readily excused. There are great vulnerabilities in Tommy too which are addressed. This is a deep down fragile soul, one that for all of his ostensible confidence is steeped in insecurity and worry—adhering to the formulas of the great tragicomedy heroes before him, Tommy fits the mould of a David Brent or Ed Wood, straining to be understood and pining for admiration, to results often genuinely heartbreaking.

Tommy Wiseau will inevitably remain an enigma, but through his lens of empathy and sensitivity, Franco is able to unpack this enigma, explore it for its glories and faults (all done with great affection and understanding) before restoring it to its original, beguiling state— the success of which largely hinges on Franco’s eerily precise evocation of the man; like the film, Franco’s performance is too one of the year’s best, nailing each of  Wiseau’s many peculiarities—accent included.

The film occasionally spills into overstatement, there’s an awful lot of “follow your dreams/ believe in yourself” broad-stroked philosophising, but the affect of this character portrait rings true, a sneakily touching saga of legitimate universal appeal. James Franco takes the worst-made movie of all time, and rather than picking on it for easy amusement, reconfigures it as a symbol of dedication and aspiration. As for Tommy Wiseau, he’s evolved from a readily mocked alien of the movie world, to an intrepid, complex man. It’s mightn’t be an Oscar, but that’s a big win for Mr Wiseau.

Rating:

3.75/4