James Franco (center) plays the enigmatic Tommy Wiseau, who created The Room.
The Disaster Artist is the big-screen adaptation of Greg Sestero’s behind-the-scenes biography recounting his journey alongside Hollywood’s eccentric Tommy Wiseau while making 2001’s The Room. Widely regarded as one of the worst films ever made, The Room is a haphazard, severely inept vanity project, a sexually explicit “drama” with an almost incomprehensible plot. Wiseau wrote, produced, directed and starred in the film, and his cinematic misfire has gained a cult following over the last decade, with midnight shows around the country. Director James Franco and crew obviously love Wiseau’s film and Sestero’s book, and it shows in this affectionate, effective adaptation.
Franco has matured as a director after numerous failures attempting to adapt literary heavyweights like William Faulkner in 2013’s As I Lay Dying, which was D.O.A. Restricting himself to mostly tight shot-reverse-shots and hand-held camera work allows Franco to concentrate on his performance. James brings a warmth and genuine angst to what could have been a hacky, wackadoo imitation for his leading performance as Wiseau, a Frankensteinian man of indiscriminate origin (who can’t remember lines) with access to what is described as a “bottomless pit” of cash.
Dave Franco plays well off his older brother as Sestero, a beleaguered, under-talented actor in way over his head. Dave displays timid vulnerability as the only guy who “gets” Tommy. The Disaster Artist is filled to the brim with cameos of many of today’s hottest comedians, all giving reserved, mostly background performances to make way for James’ welcomed scene-stealing.
The Disaster Artist is simultaneously an admiring ode to an odorous cult classic, a moving story of tumultuous friendship and an engrossing tale of how Hollywood measures success, even if it comes in a different form than expected.
