Each year there is at least one movie that I think I will absolutely hate that I end up loving. Some years, it is much easier to pinpoint that movie than in other years. Not in 2017. Based on the trailers and the movie’s premise, I thought I would absolutely hate James Franco’s (Child of God, As I Lay Dying) The Disaster Artist. I will say that I knew nothing about Tommy Wiseau or the cult status of his movie The Room. However, I was more than pleasantly surprised and impressed by how effective this movie was. This movie had quite a bit of Oscar buzz heading into awards season. Actually, it netted Franco a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy. Unfortunately (for him), he was hit up with some sexual misconduct claims right around this time, and it very well could have cost him a nomination for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role. I actually think this was the sixth-best performance of the year. As mentioned in previous posts, I would have gone with four nominated, minus Denzel Washington (Roman J. Israel Esq.), and replaced him with Jake Gyllenhaal (Stronger). After seeing this movie, I would have knocked Washington’s performance down to seventh and inserted Franco’s performance as the best performance not to be recognized with a nomination. His performance was very good. I think the movie would still have been good had he directed it and cast someone else as the lead, but casting himself was the right call for sure.
I thought this movie would fall somewhere between a spoof of something that I wasn’t aware of and a complete “disaster – his goofy-looking character with his goofy voice. But I kept hearing comparisons of this movie to Ed Wood, another movie which I thought I would immensely dislike but ended up really, really enjoying. So like most movies that I watch at home, I gave it 20 minutes to grab my attention. If it doesn’t capture me by 20 minutes, I won’t exactly turn it off, but I’ll stop giving it my attention. I truly expected that to happen with The Disaster Artist. The film begins with some real-life celebrities talking about an incomparable movie that was like nothing they’ve witnessed on screen before. It was Tommy Wiseau’s cult classic The Room (think a poor man’s Rocky Horror Picture Show minus the music). We then go to the first scene of the actual movie. In 1998 San Francisco, Greg Sestero (Dave Franco – Neighbors, Now You See Me) is in acting class, performing a scene for his instructor (Melanie Griffith – Working Girl, Shining Through). She criticizes him and his acting partner for not being fearless enough to show the class who they really are. We then meet Tommy (Franco), an aspiring actor who does the over-the-top “Stella” scene from A Streetcar Named Desire. While the rest of the class (and us, the movie audience who are now prepared for things to come) are embarrassed for Tommy, Greg admires his fearlessness. The two quickly become friends, eventually becoming roommates in an apartment that Tommy has in Los Angeles. As an aside, Tommy’s accent is often challenging to understand. When they ask where he got it from, he always says New Orleans. Also, we don’t know how he got all of the money he has, nor do we know how old he is. He says he is in his early 20’s, but everyone clearly knows he’s not. We aren’t made aware of these things for reasons that will be made known to us at some point in the film.
Things in Los Angeles don’t go well for either man professionally. They can’t find work. Tommy actually approaches a well-known Hollywood producer (Judd Apatow) at a restaurant while the man is having dinner. Despite being told this is not the way to go about things, Tommy gives him an uncomfortable rendition of Hamlet before finally being ushered away. This is just a further example that Tommy is oblivious to various societal social cues. But at least Greg is having some success in his personal life. He meets a bartender named Amber (Alison Brie – Sleeping with Other People, The Post), and the two quickly hit it off. Before long, they are a solid couple, and Tommy is clearly jealous. Unable to find work, Greg prompts Tommy with the idea of making their own movie with them as the two big stars.
Tommy starts writing the movie script and fast-forwards a couple of years to 2001, and we have the screenplay for The Room. The only thing more preposterous on the script is the movie’s dialog. But Greg doesn’t want to dash his friend’s hopes and tells him it his good. Tommy assigns himself as Johnny, the film’s main protagonist, and Greg will play Mark, Jonny’s best friend. The two go in and start getting equipment and a set to shoot their movie. When asked if Tommy wants to shoot it as digital or 35mm, he says both. When asked about the type of equipment he wants to rent, he says he’d rather buy. Money is clearly not an issue with Tommy, who wants it all. He purchases the equipment. He accepts a reduced price on the condition that he shoots in the studio of the guys selling him the equipment. Tommy and Greg quickly agree. Tommy begins the hiring process. He casts Juliette (Ari Graynor – Celeste and Jesse Forever, Whip It) as his lead actress. He brings in Rafael (Paul Scheer) as his director of photography, Sandy (Seth Rogen – 50/50, Steve Jobs) as his script advisor, and others. All are clearly in it for the money because Tommy will do what Tommy wants to do, and attempts to try to rationalize with him will fall on deaf errors. The shooting of the film is an utter train wreck. The only thing that Tommy is worse than as a director is an actor. He can’t remember his lines. Everyone else on the set has his lines memorized except for him. Take after take has to be done to solidify a D- rather than an F scene. But Tommy keeps shelling out the money, most likely paying these people above what they could be earning at a different gig.
The Disaster Artist is both a comedy and a drama, and I’m unsure which category it fits better. I was amused by it, but I didn’t flat out laugh very often. And the drama wasn’t as thick as it could have been. Because of this, I didn’t find the film felt flat like I might have. Instead, I felt it light-hearted and satisfying. Could Tommy’s problems have been dealt with from the perspective of this person needing help? Absolutely. His lack of self-awareness and obvious loneliness were problems that could have been looked at rather than just treated as a novelty. And those who he surrounded himself with, outside of Greg, don’t necessarily take advantage of him, but they also do not say no to his generosity. And Greg, the ever-faithful friend, is forced to examine the idiosyncrasies of Tommy when he asks him if he’ll delay shooting of a scene for one day so he can have an appearance in an episode of the Bryan Cranston show Malcolm in the Middle. Greg is offered a part based on having the beard of a character needed in an episode. But Tommy forces him to shave the beard based on the character he is playing in the shooting of The Room. It shows Tommy’s unwillingness to see things in a way that 95% of the population would. It would have involved delaying the shoot of a scene by one day so that his best friend would have a chance at a big career opportunity. But he’s unwilling to do it. Franco could have further examined this component of Tommy, but he chose not to. I don’t think it’s bad that he didn’t. He just chose to take the movie in a different route.
As much as Tommy was a free spirit most of the time, he also had emotions at the other end of the spectrum. This included the scene I just mentioned with him forcing Greg to shave his beard even when he could have waited a day, his inability to listen to other’s reasons, and, most poignantly, watching him at the premiere of his movie. His detached expression when others were laughing at scenes that weren’t designed to evoke humor was heartbreaking and almost enough contradiction to his personality in 95% of the movie to earn him an Oscar nomination. I was saddened watching his expression while others laughed incessantly at what he designed to be a serious drama.
But then we learn the rest of the story in the last 15 minutes or so…
The acting is great. James Franco is perfectly cast as Tommy, as is Dave Franco as Greg. And what an ensemble! The Disaster Artist was the movie that most pleasantly surprised me in 2017.
Plot 8.5/10
Character Development 8/10
Character Chemistry 8/10
Acting 9/10
Screenplay 8/10
Directing 9/10
Cinematography 8/10
Sound 8/10
Hook and Reel 9/10
Universal Relevance 9/10 (movies based on true stories get higher scores than ones that don’t when everything else is equal)
84.5%