大象传媒

Director/star James Franco recreates the story of how the real-life “worst film ever made”, The Room, got made. In short: alarming oddball Tommy Wiseau (James Franco) and relatively normal wannabe Greg Sestero (Dave Franco) become friends after meeting at an acting class in San Francisco in 1998. When their move to Los Angeles to make it big in Hollywood isn’t a success, Wiseau takes matters into his own hands, writing, directing and starring in his own self-financed movie… The Room: a truly terrible, unintentionally hilarious disasterpiece that somehow becomes beloved because everyone can’t stop laughing at it.

Pros:

• There’s a lot of love in this movie. James Franco has put his heart and soul into this project; into becoming Tommy Wiseau and attempting to introduce The Room to a more mainstream audience. While indie outfits like, say, London’s Prince Charles Cinema screen The Room on a regular basis to a legion of devoted fans, most of the world has no clue who Tommy Wiseau is and The Disaster Artist is doing a rather wonderful thing in letting more people in on the joke.
• There’s an impressive grab-bag of comedy talent joining the Franco brothers here, including Seth Rogen, Alison Brie, , Hannibal Buress, Paul Scheer, Bob Odenkirk and Jason Mantzoukas, not forgetting Josh Hutcherson, Jacki Weaver, and Bryan Cranston or the celebrity testimonials from Judd Apatow, Zach Braff, J. J. Abrams, Kristen Bell, Adam Scott, Kevin Smith and more. People love The Room, myself included. It’s an amazing thing.
• This is a film about the making of a terrible film, played for laughs, played to tug your heartstrings, played to remind you that being unapologetically creative is never, truly, a bad thing. This is a salute to the brave and the bizarre, to friendship, to trying your darn best and making the most of what you end up getting – something echoed, of course, in the film itself.

Cons:

• I should be the exact target audience member for The Disaster Artist: someone who knows and loves The Room, is fond of Tommy Wiseau, can get along with a half-decent James Franco movie, enjoys a clever-clever, meta, knowing, know-it-all comedy. This film should have been a home run for me. But… it wasn’t. All it made me do is make me think: I should watch The Room again. It didn’t move me, or make me laugh, or serve any real purpose. I simply didn’t find it entertaining. It just rumbled along, making me wish I was watching the original.
• It aims for the heart and the funny bone, and that’s to be commended, but the result comes across indulgent and meandering, and I spent a lot of its screentime waiting for it to end. And when it does end, there’s a side-by-side comparison of scenes from the original The Room and scenes recreated by the cast of The Disaster Artist, and this highlights that horrible feeling you often get with Franco ‘n’ Rogen movies: that you’re watching a group of mates having a good time, when you’re not. What’s worse – and I take no pleasure in saying this – the recreated scenes don’t even match up well.
• Oddly, they leave a lot out. Looking more deeply into the story of how The Room was made after watching The Disaster Artist, you’ll find out plenty more utterly bizarre details that Franco and co didn’t mention, including the incomprehensible shooting delays, the reason why some actors gain and lose so much weight from scene to scene, and why there are photos of spoons all over the place. Many critics are clambering over themselves to say how wonderful this film is, how hip to the scene they are, how thigh-slappingly funny it is – it’s currently sitting at over 90% on Rotten Tomatoes – and I’m dumbfounded. Honestly, I’m jealous: I’m sad I didn’t like it. But I can’t get around it: there’s a good film in The Disaster Artist, and it’s called The Room.

Three word review: Pretty not good.