Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but the thing dies in the process,” E.B. White once wrote. His words apply to The Room, an inept drama from writer-director-producer-star Tommy Wiseau that found instant cult status upon its release in 2003, earning the coveted word-of-mouth review “It’s so bad it’s good.” Ten years later, Wiseau’s costar, Greg Sestero, published a behind-the-scenes book called The Disaster Artist that chronicles his friendship with Wiseau and the clumsy production of The Room. Now James Franco has directed a film adaptation of the book in which he plays Wiseau and his brother Dave plays Sestero. Both the book and the movie try to explain what makes The Room such a phenomenon, but Franco loses patience and takes a scalpel to the story.
The Disaster Artist opens in San Francisco, where Greg, attending an acting class, sees Tommy play Stanley Kowalski’s famous meltdown scene from A Streetcar Named Desire by writhing on the ground. Impressed by Tommy’s psychotic commitment, Greg asks to be his scene partner, thus beginning an odd friendship, and on a whim the men move to Los Angeles in search of fame. Tommy faces nothing but rejection as startled casting directors watch this Dracula audition for leading-man roles. So he does what any red-blooded American would do: he writes his own movie.
Directed by James Franco
