The Disaster Artist (2017)

About a month ago I watched The Room for the first time and as expected it turned out to be the worst movie ever. I didn't care much though, after all I only watched it to really understand James Franco's The Disaster Artist, the comedy of the year, according to lots of people. The film is based on Greg Sestero and Tom Bissell's novel of the same name and is pretty much The Room's behind the scenes. 

In 1998, Greg Sestero (Dave Franco), an aspiring film actor, meets Tommy Wiseau (James Franco), a weird and mysterious guy, in an acting class. Greg is immediately drawn by Tommy's fearless and the fact that he just doesn't care about what other people think of him. They soon become friends and they move to Los Angeles to pursue their dream of becoming famous movie stars. Rejection after rejection, they decide to make a film together, The Room, but it won't be all roses.

Unlike in Tommy Wiseau's movie where literally nothing happens after the second sex scene, The Disaster Artist has an engaging and fun plot that doesn't waste time with useless subplots. To those claiming that Amber (Greg's ex-girlfriend) didn't move the plot forward and added absolutely anything to the film, you're wrong. As little as her part in the story was, she highlights how important the friendship with Tommy was for Greg. Even despite their clashes. 

The behind the scenes, the story of Tommy Wiseau, this mysterious forty-something Easter European who passes himself off as a twenty-something from New Orleans, and the heartwarming friendship that forms between him and Greg all are tremendously fascinating, the latter also being the heart of the story. A heartfelt and kinda moving story that encourages the viewer to chase one's own dreams, to never give up because there will always be something or someone that will try to stop you from doing what you want to do. 

The Disaster Artist also manages to be insanely hilarious. There's a lot of stupid but exhilarating humour (some requires the viewing of The Room to work though) that has its charms, and the imitation of scenes from The Room works wonderfully. Seriously, I can't remember the last time I watched a movie and laughed so hard my stomach would hurt.

A24, Warner Bros. Pictures

And I'm yet to talk about my favorite part of the film and probably its best part as well. The acting. James Franco gives the performances of his career. His portrayal of Tommy Wiseau is simply magnificent. He captures all the weirdness and eccentricities of this mysterious individual without being offensive. He delivers every single line as the real Wiseau would do. He has the same posture, the same weird and inconsistent accent, he walks like him and he laughs like him. Franco did such a marvelous job that when I showed my mother clips from both movies she thought it was the same guy. Also, his performance is consistently amazing both in comedic and dramatic scenes, the latter being the most powerful. 

The other big star of The Disaster Artist is James Franco's little brother, Dave. He comes nowhere near James (he's never been and will never be at this level in my opinion), but he does a really good job as Greg, the more grounded and normal of the two, and their chemistry is unsurprisingly perfect. A special mention goes to some actors having nothing but a cameo in this, both playing characters from The Room. One is Jacki Weaver as Lisa's mother, the other is Zac Efron as Chris-R. He is in the film for like 5 second but he is very intense. Who would have thought he could impress me so much.