So bad... it's terrible.
James Franco gets the balance of mockery and affection just right as director and star of The Disaster Artist. This hilarious comedy drama chronicles the making of The Room, the legendary 2003 film whose gob-smacking, eye-popping, mind-boggling awfulness has won it cult success as a midnight movie favourite and earned it the sobriquet 'The Citizen Kane of Bad Movies'.
Franco plays The Room’s bizarre creator and star, Tommy Wiseau, an independently wealthy eccentric with obscure origins and unquenchable, delusional self-confidence. And Dave Franco (James’s brother) plays Greg Sestero, the aspiring young actor who becomes Wiseau’s friend and inspires him to write, direct and star in his own film: a ludicrously melodramatic affair that he finances himself from his apparently bottomless pockets.
The big joke is that Wiseau believes he is making a masterpiece, notwithstanding his total lack of experience or ability. We, however, can admire the skill with which Franco, abetted by the likes of Seth Rogen, Josh Hutcherson and Jacki Weaver, recreates The Room’s hopeless ineptitude, with spot-on re-enactments of some of its most notoriously dire scenes - including the infamous, much-memed rooftop sequence in which Tommy blows the line, 'Oh, hi, Mark!' Seven seconds long, the scene apparently took Wiseau three hours and 32 takes to get on camera.
Make sure you hang around for The Disaster Artist's end credits, which run side-by-side comparisons of moments from the original and its recreation, showing how Franco gets Wiseau's bizarre, unplaceable accent and oddball mannerisms down pat. Yet his film's. But the big surprise is that the decidedly odd, bromantic friendship at the movie’s heart should prove so touching.
Certificate 15. Runtime 103 mins. Director James Franco
Available on Blu-ray, DVD & Digital from Warner Bros.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMKX2tE5Luk
