You’re tearing me apart, Franco!
(This
review contains minor spoilers!)
Tommy Wiseau’s The Room is such a stunningly bizarre movie on multiple accounts.
The movie is horrendous in every definition of the word, but the insane
symphony of awful somehow manages to circumvent the laws of filmmaking and
creates a movie that is just so stunningly bad that it becomes great. Since its
release in 2003 the movie has become a cult favourite, playing to sold out
midnight screenings across the world and turning the unknown cast into mild
superstars, with Mr. Wiseau himself at the center of it all.
After co-star Greg Sestero wrote his
book about his experiences with Tommy and being in The Room, the story was so insane and unbelievable that it was just
asking to be put into movie form. Brothers James and Dave Franco went to task attempting
the impossible: trying to make a Best Picture winner out of the worst movie of
all time.
The results? While as a fan of The Room I feel there were a few
missteps, as a movie I think The Disaster
Artist has a fair shot at the Oscars this year in multiple categories.
Dave Franco plays Greg Sestero, a
struggling actor trying to find his way in the world. One fateful day he bumps
into Tommy Wiseau (played by James Franco), a mysterious vampiric-looking man
with an unidentifiable accent, an inexplicable near-bottomless bank account,
and a refusal to divulge anything about his past. Both try and fail to get
anywhere with Hollywood producers and agents, until Wiseau creates a script for
what he thinks is a hard-hitting drama, and the two set out to create it
together.
To start, let’s address the elephant
in the room: James Franco as Tommy. In what is easily the performance of his
career, at no point do you feel like it’s Franco doing a silly voice and
wearing a crazy wig. He is Tommy
Wiseau. He completely dominates every scene he’s in, whether you’re supposed to
laugh at him, hate him or feel for him. Best of all is that he never feels like
he’s making fun of Tommy. How easy would it have been for some actor to
exaggerate him into a crazy lunatic? Instead, Franco treats him as a real
person, however unbelievable his story may be. Everything he does feels
grounded and true to his person, and by the end you really get a stronger
understanding of why he made The Room.
Dave Franco’s performance as Greg
Sestero is similar to Greg and Tommy themselves. He’s great and all, but when
compared to the other one he’s not nearly as eye-catching. He does a fine job
and carries most of the movie on his back, which is by no means an easy task considering
the straight man he often plays to his brother’s role.
The other actors play their parts
fine. In terms of recasting the parts of The
Room I was happy with the choices they made (Josh Hutcherson as Denny is
genius), and Seth Rogen is hilariously deadpan as script supervisor Sandy Schklair.
The thing is that every scene is clearly devoted to whichever Franco bro is
onscreen at that time, leaving the others without much to do aside from
antagonize Tommy here and there. I would’ve liked to see more of them,
especially when Sestero’s book is filled with hilarious stories from the set
that didn’t make it into the movie.
Easily my favourite part of the movie
is that even though it plays like a comedy, the message beneath Wiseau’s
insanity and Sestero’s resistance is one of the strongest I’ve seen from a
movie in a long time. Disaster Artist talks
about following your dreams in ways that La
La Land wishes it could, and Tommy’s story about ultimately wanting
friendship and acceptance in normal society instead of fame and fortune out of The Room is portrayed splendidly. I won’t
dare spoil the ending of the movie, but trust me when I say it’s poignant,
funny, and above all extremely heartfelt.
I did have a few caveats with the
movie, though. Towards the end they start throwing in scenes that never
actually happened to make the ending feel stronger. There’s a scene where Greg
is offered a bit part on Malcom in the
Middle from a Bryan Cranston cameo that never actually happened in real
life, and a pretty over-dramatic conflict between Tommy and Greg that also didn’t
happen. A lot of scenes also felt pretty condensed to make the running time,
including the ending to Greg’s relationship and the two trying to make their
way in Hollywood.
But again, with how easy it could’ve
been to make this movie a 2-hour “let’s make fun of Tommy Wiseau!”-fest, the
message is what really propels it into becoming an awesome movie. James Franco
as Tommy Wiseau absolutely deserves at least a nomination for Best Actor if not
a win (but it might be hard to beat Gary Oldman as Winston Churchill), and the
movie pays respect to Tommy’s creative vision for the movie instead of playing
it safe and parroting memorable quotes for the entertainment of die-hard fans.
Whether you’re a fan of The Room or you’ve
never heard of Tommy Wiseau, this movie will speak to artists and dreamers
everywhere.
In short, I give this movie high
marks.
FINAL SCORE
8/10
Great
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