The Disaster Artist

Image credit: Wikipedia

Nothing like having the flu as a means to catch up on your movie binging! In between sneezing and excruciating coughs that felt as though I was shifting around a mass of razor-plated gunk in my chest, I discovered that The Disaster Artist had made it onto Netflix Australia. I missed it at the cinemas and was intrigued by the story from the get-go so the other day I curled up in bed with my laptop and caught up on a missed opportunity…

Based on Greg Sestero’s non-fiction book of the same name, The Disaster Artist tells the story of the friendship between budding actor Greg Sestero (Dave Franco) and mysterious, arts-worshipper Tommy Wiseau (James Franco). The two meet in an acting class and before you know it, they are best friends moving to LA together to become big stars. While Greg gets an agent and continues to struggle for work, Tommy is told outright that he does not have what it takes to make it in this business and so the two decide to make their own movie. As a ‘screw-you’ to Hollywood, Tommy writes ‘The Room’ and, with a mysterious bottomless supply of money, hires a cast and crew to make one of the most celebrated ‘worst movies’ that the industry has ever seen.

At this point I am going to slide in a disclaimer: my experience of this movie was influenced and (one could argue) slightly tarnished by the state of mind I was in. At the time of watching The Disaster Artist, I am also midway through Clementine Ford’s latest book Boys Will Be Boys (a great read) and a strong chunk of the content of this film’s story disturbed me on a gender-political level. It’s not something that I’ll centre the review on, but it is something that I will bring up as it affected my filmic experience and does raise some disturbing questions about where society is at right now (especially in the movie industry).

In the wake of the Weinstein Scandal, I don’t know if you could argue that the film was doing this deliberately or not, but it openly refers to a very dangerous character/concept: the man with the camera. A significant portion of what drives the plot is Wiseau’s appreciation, nay admiration of good cinema and critically celebrated directors and, as a man with the camera, he models himself by the example of some pretty horrid role models: Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick being two names openly praised. In terms of their relationship with women and film, I don’t need to explain why these are ‘trigger’ words. The Disaster Artists is a biopic, telling a true story with true characters, but more than that, it also depicts a poisonous attitude that exists within the creative world: that art is a get-out-jail-free card. While this is most explicit in a scene that involves the filming of a sex scene and Wiseau’s denigration of his female co-star, it’s not gender-sensitive, and you end up spending a large portion of the film suffering from internal haemorrhaging caused by the strain to suspend your disbelief. Why do any of the staff continue showing up for work?!

Image credit: Ew.com

It’s actually really hard to fathom this movie because on the one hand it’s a comedy-drama; satirical, but using a serious genre to be so. On the other hand the story depicts such a strange occurrence within Hollywood and there’s this vibe about it that is almost celebratory. It’s very conflicting.

James Franco’s depiction of Wiseau is captivating, but at the same time repelling; he plays a creep pretty well and the film totally gets points for the genuine way in which practically everyone –aside from Greg- reacts to him. The guy’s an enigma and, honestly, I think everyone in the film is too creeped out to deal with him for longer than they have to. So many facial expressions I saw on screen reacting to Franco reflected my own, so I’ve got to give him snaps for blurring that line between reality and the screen.

In a movie with ‘real’ characters where only one is the eccentric,  Dave Franco delivers a more or less believable performance. A buffer zone between Wiseau and the rest of the world, I can image the role of Greg is a toughie, sadly I felt that there wasn’t any rewards for his suffering and frustration and even his ‘dramatic’ confrontation with Tommy was kind of ‘eh’.

No doubt my lack of familiarity with the content came to bite me in the arse a bit here, but I feel like there was a lot happening in The Disaster Artist that convoluted the point. At the end of it all, that was my problem; I couldn’t actually see the point of this movie. Fair play to its Oscar nods and everything, but the story, the genre, The Disaster Artists is an acquired taste for which, I just don't have the palette. 

Director: James Franco, 2017

Cast: James Franco, Dave Franco, Seth Rogan, Ari Graynor, Alison Brie, Josh Hutcherson, Zac Efron, and Jackie Weaver