The Disaster Artist ***½ (2017, Dave Franco, James Franco, Seth Rogen, Ari Graynor, Paul Scheer, Alison Brie) – Movie Review

What are people saying about The Disaster Artist? I will tell you. They are saying it is funny, not hysterical, except occasionally, but definitely funny.

The casting is canny – real-life famous actor brothers playing a couple of real-life infamous weird blokes enjoying a bromance. What a weird idea that is. It’s a good job Dave Franco and James Franco are so likeable! But then they just are. The ambitious duo of likeable winners are playing a couple of likeable losers. How ironic is that?

Dave Franco, 32 but successfully playing a decade younger, goes for youthful charm playing young aspiring film actor Greg Sestero, who meets the weird and mysterious much older Tommy Wiseau in acting class. James Franco is a hoot playing Tommy, genuinely creepy and mesmerisingly engaging, and Dave Franco is kindly, dim, ever-optimistic Stan Laurel to his bumptious, blustering Oliver Hardy.

James Franco as Tommy Wiseau in The Disaster Artist.

Greg and Tommy become instant best buddies, and travel to Hollywood to live together at Tommy’s place, with no hanky panky apparently. Tommy however does later get awfully jealous when Greg finds a girlfriend, and goes ape when he tells him he’s moving out and in with her.

However, the duo concentrate on trying to become stars. That proves as tricky for them as for everyone else, an impossible dream, you might say. So, when rejected by the system, Tommy decides to write and finance his own movie that they can star in. He hires cynical Sandy (Seth Rogen) to direct the legendarily awful The Room (2003). Another obvious irony of course is that Tommy Wiseau directs and stars in The Room and James Franco directs and stars in The Disaster Artist. James Franco must be desperately hoping that his film isn’t a disaster too. Well, James, it isn’t.

The screenplay by Scott Neustadter and Michael H Weber is based on the book The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside The Room, the Greatest Bad Movie Ever Made by Greg Sestero and Tom Bissell. That claim is not of course quite true. Plan 9 from Outer Space pretty much has that one sewn up. The Disaster Artist film of course recalls Ed Wood, the film about the maker and making of Plan 9. The Disaster Artist isn’t quite as good, in the same way that The Room isn’t perhaps quite as bad as Plan 9.

Nevertheless, like the Francos, The Disaster Artist is good, quirky company. It manages to burrow into you, if you let it. Fans of indie movies and bad movies and the underbelly of Hollywood will be in heaven. Its performances, funny banter, Tinseltown atmosphere and bitter-sweet tone are all just right. The Francos seem to be having a ball. It’s all a bit of an in-joke, maybe, but they convey their joy in their performances and their material. That’s appealing too.

The ambitious, ever-busy James Franco directs, turning in a capable, neat and tidy movie with no evident pauses or lulls in the fun or the story-telling.

James Franco won the Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy, but was totally snubbed at the Oscars. The film has one Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay (Scott Neustadter, Michael H Weber).

James Franco turned 40 on 19 April 2018.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Movie Review

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