The Disaster Artist

Or: Ojai

I have some little difficulty being objective about the Disaster Artist. As an actor myself (those who cannot do, teach; those who cannot teach criticize) there is something downright offensive about a story of two idiots making their artistic dreams reality, and doing it in the worst possible way. If to be a critic is to be a social arbiter I would have choice things to say about two gormless white boys who see themselves as entitled to glorious futures bluster and bully their way into ersatz stardom, abusing the cast and crew, and ending up with a product that would not be celebrated if it was only slightly less ridiculously awful than it actually is. That there is something disturbing (and smacking of a serious social lack) about the savage glee that comes on to audiences (both in life and on screen) when they cheer for The Room. But the job is not to be a social arbiter, no matter how much I’d like to be. Instead, I can just tell you what I saw.

In 1998, nineteen-year-old Greg Sestero (Dave Franco) meets the man who will change his life. That man is Tommy Wiseau (James Franco) an urban Sasquatch with the voice of a Valley Girl and the manner of a bullying business tycoon elected to high office. Spurred out of his stage shyness Tommy pushes Greg to live out his dream of acting in Los Angels where, unable to be cast anything, they decide to make their (Tommy’s) own feature.

The sympathetic treatment of Wiseau (“I am not villain, I am hero.”) would be moving if they showed him to be anything other than a narcissistic cretin, though like so much of the movie, Franco the elder has been scrupulous in the recreation of his source. Franco the younger has a believable diffidence that would be more impressive if it wasn’t the same flavor throughout the evening. Indeed the movie doesn’t really spark and turn over until Seth Rogan appears as Sandy Schklair, serving as script-supervisor, sub-director, and general straight man.

It’s a film that sticks close to the actual, unbelievable happenings of the Room Shoot (as is testified by its ending, side by side shots), and does cast a sobering look at the treatment of women in the entertainment industry: as Juliet Danielle (Ari Graynor) suffers through the worst of Tommy’s tomfoolery (“I just want to be in a movie.”) or Carolyn Minnott (Jacki Weaver) wistfully remarking, “The worst day on set is better than the best day anywhere else,” as she recovers from heat stroke brought on by Wiseau’s idiocy.

There are clever little moments too: a favorite is the retroactive realization that Tommy’s camped out of the Ojai hotel in Los Angeles (“Oh Hai, Mark!”). And if you like The Room, though I can’t understand why you would, it must be an unheard of joy to see the exact same thing that delights you from a totally different angle. For my own part, it left a very clear message: if you have the desire to go off and do the impossible, under your own power, to hitch your wagon to the star and do the thing that everyone said you couldn’t: Don’t Do It. (Or do and be content to live as a laughingstock to the end of your days and beyond. That’s not so bad, after all, I’ve heard it said, it is far better to be thought of a fool than a snob.)