THE DISASTER ARTIST MM D: James Franco. U.S. 98 min. Sep 11, 11:59 pm, Ryerson Sep. 12, 6:45 pm, Scotiabank 1. Rating: NNNN
Oh hai, reader! James Franco has made a movie about the making of the legendarily awful cult movie The Room, ha ha ha haaaa.
But there’s a twist. The Disaster Artist does indeed revel in the risible artistic decisions of The Room’s writer/director/producer/star, Tommy Wiseau, and lets director/producer Franco indulge himself marvellously as the paranoid filmmaker. But it does so while remaining clear-eyed about the work that goes into even a terrible film, while revealing the camaraderie of Wiseau’s co-stars and crew, all of whom effectively became his hostages over the course of the production.
Franco packs the cast with friends and family – his brother Dave plays co-star Greg Sestero (from whose memoir this film was adapted) Dave’s wife, Alison Brie, plays Sestero’s girlfriend Amber buddy Seth Rogen (also a producer) is Wiseau’s script supervisor, and so on. The whole picture feels like a party. Whether or not you actually like The Room is irrelevant The Disaster Artist is its own giddy thing, and you don’t have to force yourself to laugh.