Review: The Disaster Artist

Image courtesy of A24.

It should come as no surprise that James Franco's "The Disaster Artist" is good for some laughs, especially considering the source material. But what might surprise you is that it is also emotionally engaging and not just a one-note joke that pokes fun at a particularly peculiar subject. Yes, the film takes some easy shots at a character - Tommy Wiseau (James Franco), who is responsible for the disasterpiece "The Room" - who is clearly an oddball. But the picture never comes off as cruel as it seems clear that Franco, who also doubles as director, has affection for his subject.

For those unfamiliar with "The Room" and its director, the film has become a "Rocky Horror Picture Show" cult phenomenon that has sold out midnight screenings for years and its creator - Wiseau - is a man of mystery. Well, sort of. His accent is vaguely Eastern European, although he has claimed to hail from New Orleans, and nobody knows where he obtained the $6 million to make "The Room." All of this is mined for comic gold in "The Disaster Artist."

But what differentiates "Rocky Horror" from the latter is that the former is clearly aiming to be camp, while the latter was made in all seriousness. Wiseau had originally set out to make a melodrama of the Tennessee Williams variety, but later changed his tune after "The Room" became a cult hit due to its terribleness and started calling his film a "black comedy." Regardless, if you haven't seen it, by all means do - I doubt you'll ever forget it.

"The Room" follows a fairly straightforward scenario in which a man named Johnny (played by Wiseau) comes to believe that his girlfriend, Lisa, is cheating on him with his best friend, Mark. In between, there's a scene in which Lisa's mother comments on a breast cancer diagnosis that is never mentioned again, footballs are inexplicably tossed back and forth during conversations between characters, a drug dealer torments a kid pal of Johnny's, the same ridiculous sex scene pops not once, but twice, and Johnny goes on a hilarious tirade after being accused of hitting Lisa ("I did naaht hit her, I did naaht do it, it's bullshit, I did naaht hit her"). Conversations often begin with characters noticing each other offscreen and transitioning into a new scene of dialogue with - for example - "Oh, hi Mark."

One of the elements that makes "The Room" so hilarious is that Wiseau seemingly has no clue how Americans - maybe people, in general - speak to one another. Franco's film focuses on the friendship between Wiseau and Greg Sestero, who wrote the book on which this film was based and starred as Mark in "The Room," and how the decline of their friendship played itself out on the screen in Wiseau's film.

In other words, this is a film about the making-of-a-movie - but one that is particularly bonkers. A number of well-known faces - a deadpan Seth Rogen, Jacki Weaver, Alison Brie, Zac Efron and Josh Hutcherson - have bit parts in Franco's film and all of them deliver. James' brother, Dave, gives his best performance to date as Sestero, a guy who is clearly thankful for the assistance that Wiseau gave him that enabled him to move to Los Angeles and break into acting, but also unnerved by the strange behavior that Wiseau shows on the set - especially during a scene in which he belittles a female cast member - as well as his possessiveness regarding their friendship.

I've seen two recent movies - this one and the odd, but charming "Brigsby Bear" - that ended with screenings of DIY films in which the kooky creators of the films being screened received a standing ovation after bearing their hearts and souls on the screen. And that's really one of the reasons that "The Room" is so endearing. It's a terrible movie, but to the extent that it's almost a great one. It is clear that Wiseau poured himself into the film and has the passion - if not necessarily the skill - to connect with viewers. "The Disaster Artist" is funny, but like Tim Burton's wonderful "Ed Wood," it's also a film that proves that dedication can often make up - to an extent - for ability and, therefore, it's a film that has its heart in the right place. Franco's picture pokes fun at its hero, but it loves him just the same.