The Disaster ArtistSometimes it's not enough to reach for your dreams--you have to leap headlong off a cliff to grab them--but what happens when someone like the notorious Tommy Wiseau is packing your proverbial parachute? The Disaster Artist is a comedy depicting the unorthodox working relationship between the aforementioned Tommy Wiseau (played by James Franco) and neophyte actor, Greg Sestero (Dave Franco). What begins as an unlikely friendship between the "babyfaced" Greg and the enigmatic Tommy leads to them making their own movie; but as their professional partnership progresses, their friendship begins to implode.
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The Disaster Artist is adapted from the book of the same name co-written by Greg Sestero, and describes his collaboration with Tommy Wiseau on one of cinema's most infamous "bad movies", The Room. Audiences of The Disaster Artist will likely have some foreknowledge of the reputation of The Room, infamous for its bad directing, acting, writing, and so on; for those who are unfamiliar with The Room, The Disaster Artist is presaged by a selection of comedians and filmmakers who comment on the legacy of The Room as a kind of backwards marvel of filmmaking--a true "disasterpiece". The meeting between Greg and Tommy happens at a community theater class in San Francisco, where the visibly nervous Greg struggles on stage to deliver a scene. Shortly thereafter, the supremely confident Tommy (not Thomas) strides down the stairs to the stage, and begins giving his interpretation of a Tennessee Williams scene, aping the most absurd Brando by moaning "Stella" while hurling a folding chair around. What somehow impresses Greg, however, is Tommy's complete lack of fear and self-consciousness in his ability to expose himself on stage to a room full of "strangers". ("Strangers" is in quotes here, because as The Disaster Artist progresses, it becomes clear that even here, Tommy is presenting a "character" of himself, in what is really a safe environment, i.e. the classroom.) Greg asks Tommy to do a scene with him in order to help break out of his shell. Tommy, who perpetually wears thick black sunglasses and multiple belts, looking like a caricature of a fashion model, plays it cool but accepts Greg's invitation, leading to a pivotal scene where Tommy takes Greg to a breakfast restaurant and forces him to perform a scene in public. In this moment, Greg finally comes alive as an actor, driven by his bizarre acting coach and colleague; Tommy observes that the other people in the restaurant "don't matter", and he needs to put them out of his mind if he really wants to pursue his dream as an actor. In another movie, this scene would have major emotional resonance, because it represents an act of self-discovery for Greg; it is also in The Disaster Artist, but something a little bit stranger because of Tommy's presence.
It soon becomes clear that Tommy is not the savant he leads Greg and others to believe as the production of The Room progresses. The character of Tommy Wiseau is reminiscent of Chance/Chauncey Gardner from Being There--his off-kilter behavior misinterpreted by some as being either genius, madness, or plain stupidity. This raises the question about what The Disaster Artist is saying about who "Tommy Wiseau" is, deftly dancing with this question and teasing us with assorted details about this real-life mystery man. How is it that he is independently wealthy enough to finance The Room without any backing? Why does he tell people he is from New Orleans when he is asked about his unusual accent? How old is he? Some of these are questions Greg asks in an effort to get to know the man who seems like a comrade-in-arms in their mutual passion for acting and even a friend. They talk about James Dean while going out for pizza, and take a middle-of-the-night pilgrimage to the site of his fateful car crash together. They form a "pact" to push one another, because they both know how easy it is to let complacency eclipse the pursuit of greatness. Even if Tommy's dream isn't Greg's dream, The Disaster Artist portrays Tommy as a man who recognizes this truth even when reality threatens to obscure it for Greg. Conversely, as Greg becomes more involved with his girlfriend, Amber (Alison Brie), or has an opportunity for a guest spot on "Malcolm in the Middle", Tommy's jealousy boils over, and it becomes clear that Tommy is more vulnerable and emotionally fragile than he lets on. Tommy appears to be a conceited jerk at first glance; and while his subsequent behavior does not preclude this, there is also the sense that Tommy is always acting, playing a version of himself for the world, so that he can be a "real American hero", like his character from The Room, Johnny. Between Tommy's inconsiderate and questionable treatment of his fellow actors and the crew on set, to his selfish and petulant behavior in the real world, Tommy and Greg's relationship deteriorates. And yet, nearly fourteen years after the release of The Room, Tommy Wiseau and Greg Sestero will be playing the leads in an upcoming film called Best F(r)iends--a title that references another unconventional work relationship that parallels Tommy and Greg's, that of filmmaker Werner Herzog and his volatile star, Klaus Kinski; their explosive collaborations were detailed in the documentary called My Best Fiend. (Aside from the hair, Tommy Wiseau and Klaus Kinski even look a bit alike.)
The reputation of The Room has made it the kind of movie that has become synonymous with a cult classic, alongside the likes of other midnight perennials like The Rocky Horror Picture Show. There is no disputing that The Room is a bad movie, although The Disaster Artist approaches Tommy's vision of the film as a demented gospel. Lines like "everyone betrayed me" have added resonance when juxtaposed with the paranoid sense of doubt and delicate self-esteem that is intimated to be concealed within Tommy. Although Greg is the protagonist of The Disaster Artist, there are unavoidable parallels between this film and Tim Burton's off-kilter biopic about an earlier "worst director of all time", Ed Wood. (Coincidentally, James Franco also directs and produces The Disaster Artist, although this is a better movie than The Room.) There are parts of The Disaster Artist that call attention to the hypocrisy in Hollywood, like a scene in a restaurant with a surly producer (played by Judd Apatow) whom Tommy implores to put him in a movie, if a bit too enthusiastically. There is the sense that every crazy thing Tommy does is in spite of a world that wants to tell him what he can and cannot do, and that he believes that he is saving Greg from falling into a quagmire of mediocrity by rewriting the rules on how to make a movie--at least from Tommy's point of view. The humor in The Disaster Artist comes from watching how absurd the strange, Dracula-like Wiseau behaves, and just what kind of madness he'll indulge in from scene to scene. The heart of the film, however, comes in the form of the camaraderie between him and Greg, who is torn between tolerating and trying to understand his unusual friend, even when he is intolerable and can barely be understood with his thick accent.
Recommended for: Fans of a funny and absurd biographical account about a pair of dejected actors who rise up to the challenge of making their own movie, and all the crazy nonsense that follows when one ego is too big for the entire project. And, it goes without saying, for fans of the campy, nutty midnight movie sensation that is The Room.
It soon becomes clear that Tommy is not the savant he leads Greg and others to believe as the production of The Room progresses. The character of Tommy Wiseau is reminiscent of Chance/Chauncey Gardner from Being There--his off-kilter behavior misinterpreted by some as being either genius, madness, or plain stupidity. This raises the question about what The Disaster Artist is saying about who "Tommy Wiseau" is, deftly dancing with this question and teasing us with assorted details about this real-life mystery man. How is it that he is independently wealthy enough to finance The Room without any backing? Why does he tell people he is from New Orleans when he is asked about his unusual accent? How old is he? Some of these are questions Greg asks in an effort to get to know the man who seems like a comrade-in-arms in their mutual passion for acting and even a friend. They talk about James Dean while going out for pizza, and take a middle-of-the-night pilgrimage to the site of his fateful car crash together. They form a "pact" to push one another, because they both know how easy it is to let complacency eclipse the pursuit of greatness. Even if Tommy's dream isn't Greg's dream, The Disaster Artist portrays Tommy as a man who recognizes this truth even when reality threatens to obscure it for Greg. Conversely, as Greg becomes more involved with his girlfriend, Amber (Alison Brie), or has an opportunity for a guest spot on "Malcolm in the Middle", Tommy's jealousy boils over, and it becomes clear that Tommy is more vulnerable and emotionally fragile than he lets on. Tommy appears to be a conceited jerk at first glance; and while his subsequent behavior does not preclude this, there is also the sense that Tommy is always acting, playing a version of himself for the world, so that he can be a "real American hero", like his character from The Room, Johnny. Between Tommy's inconsiderate and questionable treatment of his fellow actors and the crew on set, to his selfish and petulant behavior in the real world, Tommy and Greg's relationship deteriorates. And yet, nearly fourteen years after the release of The Room, Tommy Wiseau and Greg Sestero will be playing the leads in an upcoming film called Best F(r)iends--a title that references another unconventional work relationship that parallels Tommy and Greg's, that of filmmaker Werner Herzog and his volatile star, Klaus Kinski; their explosive collaborations were detailed in the documentary called My Best Fiend. (Aside from the hair, Tommy Wiseau and Klaus Kinski even look a bit alike.)
The reputation of The Room has made it the kind of movie that has become synonymous with a cult classic, alongside the likes of other midnight perennials like The Rocky Horror Picture Show. There is no disputing that The Room is a bad movie, although The Disaster Artist approaches Tommy's vision of the film as a demented gospel. Lines like "everyone betrayed me" have added resonance when juxtaposed with the paranoid sense of doubt and delicate self-esteem that is intimated to be concealed within Tommy. Although Greg is the protagonist of The Disaster Artist, there are unavoidable parallels between this film and Tim Burton's off-kilter biopic about an earlier "worst director of all time", Ed Wood. (Coincidentally, James Franco also directs and produces The Disaster Artist, although this is a better movie than The Room.) There are parts of The Disaster Artist that call attention to the hypocrisy in Hollywood, like a scene in a restaurant with a surly producer (played by Judd Apatow) whom Tommy implores to put him in a movie, if a bit too enthusiastically. There is the sense that every crazy thing Tommy does is in spite of a world that wants to tell him what he can and cannot do, and that he believes that he is saving Greg from falling into a quagmire of mediocrity by rewriting the rules on how to make a movie--at least from Tommy's point of view. The humor in The Disaster Artist comes from watching how absurd the strange, Dracula-like Wiseau behaves, and just what kind of madness he'll indulge in from scene to scene. The heart of the film, however, comes in the form of the camaraderie between him and Greg, who is torn between tolerating and trying to understand his unusual friend, even when he is intolerable and can barely be understood with his thick accent.
Recommended for: Fans of a funny and absurd biographical account about a pair of dejected actors who rise up to the challenge of making their own movie, and all the crazy nonsense that follows when one ego is too big for the entire project. And, it goes without saying, for fans of the campy, nutty midnight movie sensation that is The Room.