The Dis­as­ter Artist

Any self-respect­ing film fan has at least heard of Tom­my Wiseau’s The Room. Fre­quent­ly referred to as one of the worst films ever made, the self-fund­ed romance/​drama/​accidental com­e­dy has achieved cult sta­tus since its 2003 release, and its director/​writer/​producer/​star has become the patron saint of Hol­ly­weird. Who bet­ter to tell Wiseau’s sto­ry than director/​writer/​producer/​artist/​Columbia professor/​actor James Franco?

If you’re famil­iar with The Room, the plot and the sto­ry behind it are self-explana­to­ry (rel­a­tive­ly speak­ing) but for those who aren’t… In 1998, Greg Ses­tero met Tom­my Wiseau at a San Fran­cis­co act­ing class, and the two struck up an unlike­ly friend­ship. After mov­ing to Los Ange­les togeth­er and fail­ing to hit the big time as actors, they decid­ed to make a film of their own – writ­ten, fund­ed, direct­ed by and star­ring Wiseau, with Greg play­ing his best friend.

It was to be a dra­mat­ic mas­ter­piece fea­tur­ing John­ny, a true Amer­i­can hero. Wiseau named it The Room. The Dis­as­ter Artist seeks to tell the sto­ry behind the $6 mil­lion flop which some­how became the toast of the town, boast­ing sell-out glob­al screen­ings and celebri­ty fans, and it does so impres­sive­ly, with a sur­pris­ing amount of warmth and compassion.

After all, it would be all too easy to take the mick­ey out of Wiseau, the car­toon­ish, impos­ing fig­ure with a strange, pos­si­bly east­ern Euro­pean accent and ques­tion­able dress sense, but there’s a sense that both Fran­co and the film’s writ­ers went to great lengths to avoid mock­ing their subject.

It’s as earnest as the real thing, and while Franco’s phys­i­cal like­ness to Wiseau sculpt­ed from make-up and pros­thet­ics is uncan­ny, it’s his enact­ment of his subject’s unique accent and man­ner­isms that ele­vate the film to great­ness. It’s one of his best roles to date, unham­pered by pre­ten­sion or attempts to give the audi­ence a know­ing nudge in the ribs. Franco’s Wiseau is as sin­cere, baf­fling and mes­meris­ing as the real thing.

It’s just as well too, as the film lives and dies on Franco’s impres­sive­ly mature per­for­mance. Lit­tle broth­er Dave is charm­ing but slight­ly unre­mark­able as Tommy’s best friend Greg, and there’s a sol­id sup­port­ing cast of Hol­ly­wood com­e­dy tal­ent includ­ing Franco’s own BFF Seth Rogen, but as The Room was Wiseau’s mag­num opus, this is Franco’s – every­one else is a bit player.

Yet despite the unde­ni­able mag­net­ism of Fran­co, there’s always a sense that something’s miss­ing. Wiseau remains an inten­tion­al­ly mys­ti­fy­ing fig­ure as the sto­ry is told through the eyes of straight man Greg, but Ses­tero isn’t a strong enough char­ac­ter to car­ry the sto­ry next to Wiseau, and it stum­bles sev­er­al times into for­mu­la­ic, cliché́d ter­ri­to­ry that ren­ders it for­get­table once the end cred­its roll.

This fail­ure to real­ly ignite, how­ev­er, doesn’t stop The Dis­as­ter Artist being a whole lot of fun – nice touch­es include a shot-for-shot com­par­i­son of the two films and a bril­liant­ly eclec­tic sound­track – and fans of The Room will like­ly enjoy this fit­ting trib­ute. If you’re not con­vinced, don’t expect Fran­co and co to change your mind.