Back in March I watched The Disaster Artist about Tommy Wiseau and the making of The Room. I was hoping to watch The Room first but Amazon doesn't have it to rent and I couldn't find it anywhere else and the DVD was like $11 so I said the hell with it and just watched The Disaster Artist instead.
In 1998 a struggling young actor named Greg (Dave Franco) meets Tommy Wiseau (James Franco, who also directs) at an acting class. For some reason Tommy speaks in broken English with a strange accent. Where is he from? How does he have money? How old is he? No one knows and watching this movie won't tell you.
Greg and Tommy go to LA where they struggle to find work. Ultimately they decide to make a movie. Tommy writes the script for The Room and plans to star in it with Greg as his co-star. With the money he gets from wherever, he hires Seth Rogen and a lot of people who have appeared in Seth Rogen movies to make it with him.
On the set Tommy is a cheap bully who also can't act his way out of a paper bag. As the director/producer/writer, the smartest thing he could have done is let someone else play the lead role. I guess then the movie wouldn't have been a complete disaster that's on par with Plan 9 From Outer Space for worst movie ever. At the same time Greg's relationship with a co-star makes things awkward, especially when Greg and the girl want to move out from Tommy's apartment. That's when Tommy really cranks up the bullying. When Greg bumps into Bryan Cranston, who agrees to give him a small part in a couple of Malcolm in the Middle episodes, Tommy won't let Greg have time off and forces him to shave the beard he needs for the part.
Almost a year after filming the movie, Greg and Tommy reunite for the premiere. The movie is so awful everyone starts laughing. At first Tommy flies into a rage, but Greg talks him down and Tommy claims he meant it as comedy all along. The End.
So what was the point? We don't really know much more about Tommy. We know he's kind of an asshole who made a shitty movie. That's about it.
Almost 25 years ago Tim Burton made a similar movie, Ed Wood, about the eponymous writer/director of Plan 9 From Outer Space and other terrible movies. What it did much better than The Disaster Artist was present an actual portrait of the main character. The movie actually takes a point of view that Ed Wood was enthusiastic and energetic about making and financing movies, but he wasn't very patient or talented. So at the end of the movie we have a better understanding of this deeply flawed human being. Even if it isn't exactly true (as many biopics aren't, ie The Social Network) it at least feels true enough. And so as the viewer I can feel I got to know the character and learned something about him and film making in general. Whereas with The Disaster Artist it's more like, Oh, so that's how they made that shitty movie I haven't seen. Awesome.
So for good or bad, right or wrong, you really want the biopic to take a stand and have some point of view. Otherwise it ends up as an empty experience.
I did eventually watch The Room when a DVD was cheap enough. It's not really so bad it's funny as just plain boring bad. It's a mix of wooden acting, awkward conversations, soft-core sex scenes, and unbearable misogyny. Basically the woman is an evil manipulator looking to cash in with some man and the men are innocent dupes. Maybe it'd help having the Rifftrax guys making jokes?
Fun Fact: At the end of The Disaster Artist's credits is a cookie scene where the fake Tommy Wiseau is approached by a character played by the real Tommy Wiseau and they butt heads. That was pretty funny.
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