Those Fabulous Franco Brothers

I can’t believe I own The Disaster Artist on Blu-ray. I can’t believe I own The Room on DVD. Heck, I can’t believe I’ve seen The Room in the first place.

Strange things happen when we become film bloggers.

So yeah, The Disaster Artist, the 2017 flick which stars not one, but two Portuguese American actors, James Franco and his brother, Dave as Tommy Wiseau and Greg Sestero, respectively. Tommy Wiseau is not Portuguese as far as we know. He’s not from New Orleans, either, that’s for sure. The movie is based on Greg Sestero’s book of the same name, and a good rule of thumb when it comes to The Disaster Artist is, “If it’s crazy, it’s probably true.”

Things open with a selection of celebrities praising The Room, but the movie really kicks off at Jean Shelton’s acting class in San Francisco, where Greg (Dave Franco) and another guy give a very deadpan reading of Waiting For Godot. Then Shelton (Melanie Griffith) asks for someone who can really let themselves go and be raw in a scene, and guess who pops up? It’s Tommy Wiseau (James Franco), who gives an unhinged read of Stanley yelling for Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire. Seriously. He growls. He gargles. He throws a chair. He ends the scene lying on the floor gyrating as if he’s about to die.

Wonder what Marlon Brando would think.

Tommy finds Greg playing football with some neighborhood kids and convinces him to go to dinner, which turns into an impromptu rehearsal with more overly hammy acting, and from there, this unlikely duo start hanging out. They watch Rebel Without A Cause and Tommy convinces Greg to drive them down to the site of James Dean’s car crash.

When Tommy suggests a move to LA, though, that’s when things get crazy. Greg’s mom isn’t keen on the idea of this strange guy wanting to move in with her son, and she’s even less enthused when Tommy tells her he’s nineteen and from New Orleans because he’s clearly neither. There’s not much that she can say about it, though, and Greg and Tommy are off.

It’s the usual Hollywood thing when they get to Los Angeles, what with having glossies taken and scheduling auditions. Before long, though, Tommy writes the script for The Room, and the rest, as the saying goes, is history. We also get to see some of the inspirations Tommy worked into his script, which, no surprise, include Rebel Withou A Cause. When Johnny yells, “You’re tearing me apart, Lisa!” he’s trying his hardest to channel James Dean.

The other thing about this movie is that just when it seems as if Tommy can’t get more neurotic he absolutely does. The only bathroom on set is for him. The soundstage is like a furnace. There’s no food or water anywhere. Anyone who criticizes or even talks about Tommy is a threat. Anyone who seems to have deserted, even if they haven’t, is berated. The Room people are more of an inadvertant and reluctant cult than a film crew.

Amazingly enough, people don’t walk away, maybe because Tommy pays really well, but there comes a point when everyone just wants to get the danged movie finished. Even Greg gets fed up and starts working in paid theater.

Oh, my word. If this movie is to be believed and all of the stuff in it really happened, it’s amazing that The Room even got released, let alone made, because Tommy Wiseau is a piece of work. It’s one thing to play the part of the mysterious and miserable tortured artist, but it’s another thing to try to make everyone else just as miserable and tortured.

The Disaster Artist is a pretty fun movie, although definitely not for everyone, and it makes more sense to those who have seen The Room or are at least somewhat familiar with it. I honestly can’t imagine anyone else but James Franco playing Tommy–he’s clearly not afraid to take chances and let everything hang out, sometimes almost literally, and yes, I’m saying that in the Freudian sense. Dave Franco is a great choice as Greg because as James’s brother, he’s not going to be surprised by anything his brother does, almost like Tommy and Greg themselves.

Speaking of whom, I almost felt sorry for Greg getting caught up with what Tommy was doing. The movie shows him trying more than once to break away and do his own thing, like when Greg gets a girlfriend, or when he wants to do a guest spot on Malcolm In the Middle with Bryan Cranston. Instead of supporting his friend, Tommy looks at Greg making his own way as a personal attack. Tommy might be famous because of The Room, but would anyone know Greg Sestero without Tommy Wiseau? We’ll never know.

Navel-gazing is the order of the day, of course, metaphorical or otherwise as certain bedroom scenes demonstrate, but The Room as interpreted by The Disaster Artist is what The Room could have been if it was made by a more polished, less neurotic director and a comfortably air-conditioned crew with a full craft services table at their disposal. Oh, and a selection of restrooms.

It made me wonder what could have been. On the other hand, though, if The Room was made any differently than it was, it wouldn’t be The Room. There’s a reason people throw spoons at this movie during screenings.

Well, most of the time they do, anyway. The audience at my screening didn’t throw anything, but they sure talked plenty and it was glorious.

For more of the Luso Blogathon, please see Le at Crítica Retrô and Beth Ann at Spellbound With Beth Ann. Thanks for hosting this, ladies–so glad you brought it back! Thanks for reading, all, and I hope to see you Wednesday for another post…

---

The Disaster Artist is available on DVD and Blu-ray from Amazon.

~Purchases made via Amazon Affiliate links found on this site help support Taking Up Room at no extra cost to you.~

If you’re enjoying what you see on Taking Up Room, please subscribe to my Substack page, where you’ll find both free and paid subscriber-only reviews of mostly new and newish movies, documentaries, and shows. I publish every Wednesday and Saturday.