Movie Review: The Disaster Artist (2017)

In the midst of me trying to catch up with movies I’ve missed this year, I almost forgot I saw this. That does not say anything about the quality of the movie, I just forgot lol. But just a little background, I have actually never seen The Room as a movie. I have seen many parts of it due to reviews on YouTube (Chris Stuckmann, Nostalgia Critic) and things like “Everything Wrong With” or “Honest Trailers” so from what I have seen, it is a terrible movie but I get such a kick out of what I watch, that I keep telling myself that I will actually watch it. I still haven’t done it but now that I’ve seen The Disaster Artist, I definitely have to watch The Room. 

Summary: When Greg Sestero, an aspiring film actor, meets the weird and mysterious Tommy Wiseau in an acting class, they form a unique friendship and travel to Hollywood to make their dreams come true.

Pros:

Cast and Characters. There are a lot of supporting characters in this film, but I’m not going to touch on them because in the scheme of things, they don’t really matter. Everyone is good for their part but the heart of the film lies in the brother act.

• Dave Franco as Greg Sestero. Greg wants to be an actor, I believe he’s 19 at the start, and he has big dreams of going to Hollywood and making his mark. He meets Tommy in his acting class and he immediately tries to befriend him because Tommy just seems to do his own thing and Greg wants to be able to do that. They end up moving to LA together and both try to land gigs. At first, it seems that with his youthful appearance and good looks that Greg is doing pretty well, but just like real life, it’s hard out there and he’s losing his confidence. He eventually agrees to work with Tommy on the movie that Tommy will create, thinking it’ll be huge. However, while Tommy seems oblivious to the silliness of his creation, Greg knows things are amiss but his loyalty to his friend keeps him from really saying or doing anything about it. Greg is an interesting person. He seems like a go with the flow kind of person, while making attempts at making a stand, but he backs down a lot. He seems to genuinely be a pretty good actor. I love Dave Franco, I love him lol and I thought he did well. It’s kind of funny because he’s super short compared to the real Greg Sestero who is super tall but he just has this earnestness about him.

• James Franco as Tommy Wiseau. Tommy is an interesting person. He seems like he doesn’t care at all what people think about him, though it’s clear to tell that he does care in some aspects. He wants to be pretty much everything in Hollywood, but honestly, he’s just not that good at it, and no one really seems to have the heart to tell him that to his face. They all just kind of look at him weird. Nothing is known about him though. It’s funny how often people ask him where he’s from, or how old he is and he’s always like “New Orleans” or that he’s Greg’s age and it’s like “Nah, you are so not”. He has a harder time at auditioning, and he gets a little jealous of Greg who seems to be doing a little better with life in general. He also has some possessive qualities. I could go on and on, but James Franco is fantastic. He is so much like Tommy Wiseau that it’s kind of creepy. His performance is not only spot on, but he’s having fun with it. The way he stands, the way he looks at people or things, the accent, the way he talks, he just does it all so well. It’s amazing.

The Makeup. Good job to the entire team for making James Franco look like Tommy Wiseau. I can tell the resemblance a bit anyway, but they had to have done a bit of extra work because the droopy eye lol, good job you guys. Just from seeing the trailer of him doing the rooftop scene made me crack up at how much he looked like him.

The Story. So, this movie is about the creation of The Room. It starts out in an acting class, where Greg Sestero is a shy actor and Tommy is this eccentric person who wants to take the world by storm. I think the main thing that this movie does really well, is show how hard it can be for aspiring actors in Hollywood. I think some movies glamorize a bit but this one doesn’t do that. It shows that it really is hard out there. Sacrifices are made, sometimes they are made for you by someone else and you don’t like it. It can be very disheartening and almost soul crushing. I think this movie handles that very well. Plus, it talks about the horrors of working with someone who might just be crazy and shows a bit behind the scenes of movie making. It was a very realized take on that.

The Humor. So I think this movie is hilarious. I know about The Room, I know about the absurdity of that film. I didn’t know the details that went into making it but I know enough about it that, as soon as James Franco came on-screen as Tommy, I immediately started cracking up, same when he started talking. When they actually started filming The Room it was so entertaining to see these actors perfect the actors doing the terrible film script of that movie. I laughed a lot and a lot of was laughing by association, in that because I know about the movie and people they’re making fun of, I was able to enjoy it more.

The End Credits. I don’t know if it’s completely after the credits or during the credits, but they have side by side comparisons from this movie and The Room. It really highlights James Franco’s acting chops and directing chops at how similar these actors make their role in THIS movie to the original movie. It’s fantastic actually.

Cons:

The Humor. Like I always say, humor is subjective but I think this movies problem is that if you know nothing about The Room then certain things might not be funny to some audiences. It alienates some of the audience. Now, I think it could still be funny if you know nothing about it, but my friend saw it with me, and she doesn’t know anything that the situation, so some things that happened, that were related to the movie, she didn’t laugh. I think that might be the case for some people. She did laugh at other things but I think the novelty of The Room was lost on her until they showed the “movie” at the premiere in this movie.

The Directing. So, I didn’t think it was bad, per se, but the film looks cheap. James Franco directed the movie and I think this is his first actual directing job and maybe he’s not very good at it, or at least not yet. It looked like a TV movie.

The Relationship between Greg and Tommy. So one of the things I noticed about this movie is that there is a friendship between Greg and Tommy but the problem is, is that while things continue to go on, you being to wonder, why exactly is Greg sticking around? At some point, his life takes a different direction but he’s so loyal to Tommy that it’s kind of weird. Some of the weirdly possessive stuff that Tommy does, I would have rolled out a long time ago. I don’t think the movie ever really lets Greg say why that is. There’s a lot of times where Greg can’t seem to voice his reasons for things, and maybe that was supposed to be a character trait but I think it’s more unfortunate because it makes certain instances or decisions made by him to come off…written by the script lol. If that makes sense.

Overall, I really like The Disaster Artist. I think the acting is really good, especially from James Franco who I can see getting some nominations for acting (that’s probably the only thing this movie will probably get nominations for) and Dave Franco is good as well. I think the movie is very funny, especially if you know The Room, which helps elevate the humor of this movie. I think the makeup on James Franco to look like Tommy is eerie in that he looks just like him, especially if you look at him really quickly. I think it’s really funny and that the story surrounding the movie, and what it’s talking about is hilarious. The story is also strong in that it shows some of the realities of dealing with becoming an actor. However, I do think the humor is a bit alienating to audiences who know nothing about The Room. The movie is funny but a lot of has to do with knowing about that movie and if you don’t it might not be that funny. I also think the directing is not that good, the film looks cheap and like a TV movie. The friendship between Greg and Tommy, I also found to be weird especially considering how Tommy would do some terrible stuff and Greg would just be loyal to him with not explanation.

Rating: 4.3 out of 5 stars.

Have you seen The Disaster Artist? What did you think of it? Have you ever seen The Room? Tell me your thoughts on that.

What’s the best worst movie? Tell me your picks!

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