This is a prime example of art imitating art imitating art. Prepping for this film included an interactive adventure with our screening The Room with a full house of die hard fans throwing plastic spoons at the screen, batting oversized inflatable footballs and chanting chirps and “Go” on cue. It’s all part of the experience watching “worst movie ever made.”
Legendary bad filmmaker, Tommy Wiseau wrote, produced and directed his narcissistic love story which has become a cult comedy classic. It is so bad its funny. Now James Franco decided to direct his own movie about making that movie. And he even consulted with Tommy while doing it. Not only that, he dressed, talked with a strange accent like him and wore the same bad black hair. He also reportedly stayed completely in character directing as well as acting as him throughout the production. Franco knows how to get into it. Even his weird laugh is exactly like Tommy’s.
His brother, Dave Franco, plays Greg Sestero who played Mark in The Room. Greg is Tommy’s best friend. Greg wrote a book about his adventures making the original film and that’s where a lot of the behind-the-scenes material comes from. He’s cast in this film as a casting agent and still works with the real Tommy. Greg is supposed to be the voice of reason but there is no reasoning with Tommy.
Writers Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber had their hands full dealing with James Franco as Tommy on the set. He is so out there, but if you see The Room, it’s almost hard to tell he and Tommy apart. They look and act like strange soulmates.
Seth Rogen plays the Assistant Director on the set and he gets a lot of laughs. He’s the one who points out, many times under his breath what’s really going on or not happening that should be. He’s the low key truth teller and savvy crew member having to work under the most absurd set of circumstances to hit a movie set.
James Franco had a lot of fun playing Tommy who was known to be secretive about everything. No one knows where he was born, maybe some Eastern European country because he has an accent which he denies having. No one knows how old he is or anything about his family. He says he’s lived in Las Vegas, Paris, Louisiana and was able to maintain residences in LA and San Francisco at the same time. And he made a lot of money, but no one knows how. He spent some $6 million of his own money to make the worst film ever made. But it’s so bad, it really is funny.
And so are James and Dave Franco showing how it was done. Seeing The Room the first time was hard to take. But it made seeing The Disaster Artist even more entertaining. James Franco cast this film perfectly. Ari Graynor as Lisa, Josh Hutchinson playing Henry’s sort of adopted son Denny, with overabundant hair, Jacki Weaver as Lisa’s Mom, and Dave Franco as Greg cast as Mark in the movie.
A number of cameos including J.J.Abrams, Kristen Bell, Ike Barinholtz and more set up the film even before the opening credits. James Franco in acting class kicks it off after the credits and the way he lays on the ground wreathing and screaming his lines in a drama class show exactly how much talent Tommy had. Embarrassingly none. That sets off the laughter.
So is the number of takes coming out of the rooftop door to say a line Tommy wrote that he just can’t remember! The crew learns it by heart long before he does. Cheers rang out from the crew in the film and from everybody around us when he finally gets it out.
And rehearsing lines in a coffee shop at the top of his lungs, forcing Greg (Dave Franco) to do the same, is cringeworthy but not as cringeworthy as the recreation of the sex scene from The Room played here with Ari Graynor. It’s almost unwatchable. Tommy was totally uninhibited and so is James Franco. You will see more of him than you’d ever want to and he doesn’t care.
The scene in the high end restaurant where Tommy is so hell bent on connecting with people to further his acting career is another classic. His interrupting Judd Apatow at dinner is the definition of chutzpah. Watching Tommy in action is hard to watch but you can’t take your eyes off him because you just don’t know what he’s going to do next.
The film wraps with side by side scenes from The Room and the recreation of the same scenes showing how they were made for this movie. They’re synced together perfectly causing guffaws. Know that you’ll go to this film wondering if you can make it through it. But it slowly draws you in.
With this film, Tommy Wiseau has become famous again. He’s selling Wiseau underwear and going on tour. He may be a Disaster Artist but with Franco’s help, he’s having the last laugh.
A 24 1 hour 43 minutes R
