Review: The Disaster Artist Is An Artistic Disaster
- Dec 9, 2017
- 2 min read
It's not just a fun headline; The Disaster Artist takes great talent and a great story and messes it all up. The writing favours typical plot structure over actual substance, and under utilises its stellar cast. But to call it a bad movie does not do justice to the performances, cinematography, and direction.
The Disaster Artist tells the story of how the infamous 2003 movie The Room came to be, and the making of the best worst film ever made. Greg Sestero (Dave Franco) meets the mysterious Tommy Wiseau (James Franco) in acting class, and the two strike up an unusual friendship. The two move into Tommy's Los Angeles apartment with dreams of making it big in Hollywood, but repeated failure leads them to producing their own film.
Promotional materials for The Disaster Artist indicated that the movie would be telling the story of Tommy and Greg, moreso than the story of The Room. But even knowing this, I left the theatre feeling like I had watched an incredibly short movie because of how little time they spent on the making of The Room. Anyone who has read the book this film is based on knows that there are so many fascinating stories behind the scenes of The Room, but the movie spends more time trying to make the audience sympathise and relate to a character who is fundamentally unrelatable. This point in particular is the movie's downfall, as scenes such as Tommy crying during the screening of the movie feel like a complete waste of time.
That being said, the story leading up to the making of The Room gives James Franco plenty of time to shine as Wiseau. And shine he does. Some of the best lines and funniest moments in the film come from seeing this strange alien interacting with the people around him, and people's confusion regarding Tommy's age, place of birth, and source of income. Franco (James, that is, since there's three Francos in this movie) captures this character wonderfully and brings him to a comedy film without sacrificing realism (if you can call it that when discussing Wiseau). Meanwhile, Dave Franco forgets to act like the real life person he's portraying, instead just reading the lines he's been given.
The Disaster Artist is solid entertainment value from start to finish, due to things like James Franco's wonderful performance and the incredible recreations of The Room's sets. But it's distracted by the idea that a film has to have some form of character arc and a happy ending. And the stellar cast seems more like stocking stuffers - they're there to fill the movie up and make it seem better than it is, but their presence is inconsequential and forgettable. Kind of like what this film will become.
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