THE DISASTER ARTIST; A Professional Scotsman Review #17

#SPOILER FREE# The Room Trailer (if it were a good movie)

Johnny: "Thank you, honey, this is a beautiful party! You invited all my friends. Good thinking!"

I saw the infamously dreadful The Room [10... but bizarrely currently 3.6 on IMDb] last year at The Prince Charles Theatre. Writer/Director/Actor/Man Of Mystery Tommy Wiseau himself presented it and it is, hands down, the most incredible experience I've ever had at the cinema. We roared with laughter, we shouted at the screen, we threw spoons - it was so utterly incredible that the English language isn't yet sophisticated enough to describe how much fun we had. I even met Tommy in the toilet after - but exactly what happened in there stays in there I'm afraid. However, my slightly grumpy friend who shall remain nameless - I'll just call him Rowan M... no wait, that's too obvious, I'll call him R Morgan instead - said he didn't enjoy a similar experience because he'd never seen The Room before and he couldn't really enjoy it because he couldn't hear the film's dialogue over all the raucous hilarity. Which raises the critical issue: will The Disaster Artist, a look behind the making of The Room, work for the uninitiated?

Lisa: "Did you get your promotion?"

Johnny: "Nah."

[pause]

Lisa: "You didn't get it, did you?"

I'm sorry but it's a question I can never answer - or only theorise about at best. You see I've seen The Room probably ten times. I was into it many years ago, long before it was cool, hipster style (hipster Kyle?) and I genuinely find it both hilariously bad AND utterly fascinating from a film making POV. And far from being the worst film ever (both Birdemeic [shaky 2] and Troll 2 [solid 2] are considerably technically and thematically worse. In fact there are hundreds of dull pieces of cinematic garbage out there that are practically unwatchable and waaaaay objectively "worse". However The Room is almost certainly the best bad film ever - to the point where it transcends its technical failings to become almost (and I really emphasise the word 'almost') a meditation on what it means to be human. How so? It raises so many questions you'll think you're listening to Plato and Socrates in their prime. Why was that line of dialogue acted that way? Why is Tommy laughing at a serious moment? Wait... who's this new character that is being presented as someone we should already know who hasn't been introduced at all and seems suddenly important? What's Tommy's accent? Why isn't that addressed as it would maybe give his character more depth? Did they realise the camera was rolling during that take? Why are all the female characters horrible conniving bitches to a woman? Why has the mother character never brought up the fact she has breast cancer again? And why was she so blasé when she announced it? It that a nod to the futility of existence? Or is it badly directed? Or both? In fact almost every image, line of dialogue or character action provokes two, maybe three, sometimes many MANY more new questions to the point where all this intellectual stimuli compounds your very being into exerting nothing but almost uncontrollable laughter. It's a truly cathartic, emotionally exhausting and simultaneously exhilarating experience - similar to taking ayahuasca whereupon you'll explore your own beautiful and terrifying inner space with Tommy Wiseau as your spirit guide. So, with all these heady existential ramifications to consider, I'll address the only question that matters: as a The Room disciple, did The Disaster Artist work for me?

Johnny: "Everybody betrayed me! I fed up wid this world!"

Of course it did! It captures the wonderfully awful, cringe inducing details of Greg Sestero's book by the same name. Sestero played the sexy lead in The Room but was also Tommy's right hand man throughout the shoot... I'd say Producer but that would imply that the film was produced in the traditional sense - The Room more 'happened' to the cast and crew and then finally the unsuspecting audience then accidently became a global phenomenon. Actually that's very unfair. Anyone who's ever made even a film on their phone knows how difficult it is. And that's perhaps the greatest thing about The Room - the fact that an astonishingly untalented man could make such a... sod it; work of art. And it's this aspect that The Disaster Artist focuses on - the inspiring fact that it was made and some of the gorily amusing details of how it occurred almost despite itself. And pleasingly, whilst the film obviously has a lot of fun with Tommy's complete and utter alien-esque uniqueness, it doesn't insult our unlovable hero (cheep cheep) cheaply to the point of humiliation. Instead there are everyman relatable personal struggles and the wonderful sense of a man (completely) overreaching his grasp in his struggle for greatness. Have you ever tried something big and failed? What's unique here is that Tommy tried something huge, failed yet still somehow succeeded. It's a remarkable tale and The Disaster Artist shows you how such a thing was possible, inevitably compressing events into a watchable timeframe (in real life it took years for word of mouth of Wiseau's "brilliance" to gain a cult following). Cinematic conventions such as this are expected and don't harm proceedings at all.

Johnny: "You betrayed me! You're not good. You, you're just a chicken. Chip-chip-chip-chip-cheep-cheep!"

James Franco directs in a fairly mechanical no-frills kinda fashion (I'd hesitate to use the words art house) but there's a loose feel to the proceedings that lets the narrative flow. And Franco's performance as Johnny is flawless. Absolutely flawless. Mostly because of this fact: you can say what you like about Tommy Wiseau, and everyone has, but he does have one fantastic quality, one defining characteristic that I admire amongst men and woman, particularly as a... sod it: artist. He does not, and please forgive my French (or Eastern European... or wherever he's from), I repeat he does not give one single, solitary fuck what anyone thinks about him. He's a man on a mission improbable against the whole world. And Franco catches this aspect of his character absolutely wonderfully.

Mark: "As far as I'm concerned, you can drop off the earth. That's a promise."

FINAL ANALYSIS: I laughed my ass off and had a great time. I enjoyed the closer look at something I was already overly familiar with and appreciated the technical brilliance in replicating another movie. It was emotionally engaging but (and it's a big one) the film is, obviously, nowhere near as much fun as actually watching The Room. And as the perfect but lesser companion piece, if you've not seen the OG then you may struggle to wonder exactly what all the fuss is about.

SCORE: A well made, often illuminating, fun 8. But a solid 7 if you've not seen the original. Also, if you've not seen the original get your mates round, get the drinks in, set the oven on high and enjoy a delicious turkey.

ALTERNATIVE TITLE: Anyway... How's Your Sex Life?