92% on Rotten Tomatoes
Chloe's thoughts: Signed, sealed, and recommended by Chloe;
Low-energy entertainment
Watch it if you: Have seen The Room (you don't need to, but I think it's honestly better if you have);
Want to see a funny yet endearing movie about the makings of a really terrible movie
The Disaster Artist depicts the beautifully bizarre making of cult-classic film The Room (2003).
A little background on The Room: I had the pleasure of watching it twice at The Hayden Orpheum and it is honestly one of the greatest movie experiences ever. The Room is frequently described as one of the best worst movies, or "The Citizen Kane of bad movies", but what distinguishes this disasterpiece from other really crappy movies is that fact that Tommy Wiseau (the director, writer, producer, and star of the movie), honestly had no idea how bad it was. He invested $6 million into this terrible movie and paid to keep the movie in one cinema for 2 weeks to make it eligible for nomination for The Academy Awards (The Oscars). Several scenes are out of focus and several lines are badly dubbed/unsynced in scenes but that is nothing compared to the terrible acting, directing and writing. It is a horrible experience if you were watching this alone at home, but it is a wonderful experience watching it at any cult screening, such as the one that The Hayden Orpheum holds every first Friday night of the month. Here, you get to fulfil all your dreams of heckling and being rowdy, and you even get to throw spoons at the screen!
So how does someone go about making a movie so bad that it becomes an international phenomenon? Well, Greg Sestero, the second lead actor in The Room, wrote a book detailing it all, and this is the movie that explores all that.
I'll keep this review short, but I really enjoyed this movie. It was definitely not what I expected, though. I went in thinking it would be some straight up parody of Tommy Wiseau. There are honestly some theories out there that Tommy is an alien and he's trying to disguise himself as a human, and all of the things he does in The Room are his interpretation of what humans are like. This is actually the best explanation I have heard for any of Tommy's behaviours, because he really does not seem human at all.
So I thought the film was just a straight up mockery of him, but it turns out it's actually quite factual and presents the making of The Room not as something that means we should make fun of Tommy, but more like something that shows us just how passionate Tommy was about the film industry.
Yes, it's a pretty factual movie (a lot of it was close to the book apparently, and Tommy even said he approved 99.99% of the movie), and the facts are funny, so you can't help but laugh, but it's definitely not a mockery of Tommy. You start off laughing at him, but along the way you realise just how much he cares for acting and making a movie. And I think that's a testament to all the real life actors of The Room: they took huge risks in making this movie, they really wanted it to work out well, and unfortunately it just didn't. But at least they tried.
As to the actors of this movie, I really enjoyed the acting all round.
James Franco honestly disappears as Tommy, with the way he looked, the way he acted, and the way he talked. He would stay in character with Tommy's accent whenever he directed this movie, and the actors couldn't take him seriously, but he told them that they'd get used to it.
And sure enough, even we as an audience get used to his accent. I sometimes would forget I'm watching James Franco and not Tommy Wiseau.
And then it's a little Franco brothers party in this movie because Dave Franco plays Greg Sestero (the second lead in The Room, and the author of the book The Disaster Artist). Dave was really good too as the good friend who's relatable to us and yet somehow manages to understand and (try to) rein in Tommy at his weirdest.
Seth Rogen also plays the script supervisor, Alison Brie is Greg's love interest, and there's a bunch of other small cameos and roles by celebrities we're familiar with.
Overall, I really enjoyed this movie. I don't know what it'd be like to watch it without having seen The Room, though, and I think it would be a bit weird, but for fans of The Room it's a must see. It's not absolutely amazing, like it's not going to win awards or anything but I can see why some people want James Franco to be at least nominated for a Golden Globe. It is a fun time, and it's great at showing the passion that new actors have for the industry. It will make me look at The Room a bit differently the next time I see it, and maybe I won't even laugh as much as I would normally. Or maybe I will, it's a pretty terrible movie after all.
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