The Disaster Artist

 

By Sean Sevilla: Feb 1, 2018

 

The Disaster Artist, directed by actor James Franco, is a biography of Tommy Wiseau and his work creating The Room. The Room is a cult film, and is widely renowned as the best worst movie ever and still has theater showings in major cities to this day since its release in June of 2003. This film’s success despite only earning $1,800 in the box office and the mystery of the film’s creator brought about the making of The Disaster Artist. Partially based on the book, (also named The Disaster Artist), written by Greg Sestero who played a lead role in The Room and is a former roommate of Tommy Wiseau, this film is about chasing your dreams no matter what people say about you.

 

[Spoiler Warning] Though the story seems to be about Tommy, it mainly focuses on Greg’s point of view and his interactions and friendship with Tommy and other people. Right at the beginning of the film Greg sees Tommy as a fearless actor and wants to learn from him while everyone else sees him as a maniac.

How people view Tommy remains consistent throughout the film and Greg eventually starts to feel the same way. Tommy is misunderstood and views himself as the hero of the story despite his outrageous actions and countless put-downs. When Tommy decided to create his own movie, he designs it as a drama and wants to reflect how people can act strangely in real life, and you can see how he imagines himself when he writes the main character of the story, an all-American guy who has it all, to be played by himself. Johnny, The main character of The Room, is eventually betrayed by all of his friends, more so by his best friend Mark (played by Greg), which all really does reflect in The Disaster Artist. Nobody respects Tommy’s vision for his movie and Greg leaves Tommy as a roommate. Though, it all works out for him in the end.

 

In my opinion, The Disaster Artist is a well-crafted film that lives up to The Room’s legacy, and according to Tommy, it is “99.9% accurate”. James Franco did a great job as an actor and director in the film and even directed in character due to the excessive amount of make-up on his face. It had a plethora of actor cameos and the story was comedic yet heart-felt at the same time. There are many instances when Tommy looks like the bad guy, but you can’t help but feel bad for him, never given a chance and one who is always put down. People laughed at the movie he put his heart and soul (and $6 million) into. Really a great story about overcoming all of that.

 

Tommy went out to make a great drama and people loved it as a comedy. People never gave him a chance and when they did it was misunderstood, and he took it. Even after Greg stopped believing in him, he still premiered their movie and still came to bring Greg to it. Despite everyone’s nay saying he pushed through and went on. The acting is effective and the film will leave an impression as one of my favorite movies of all time, with moments both sad and funny.