The Disaster Artist

It would be a stretch to expect a brilliant film, because Franco doesn’t quite manage to spread the plot comprehensively across multiple characters or motivations and move purposefully in one direction. The charm of The Disaster Artist lies more in its quirkiness than its responsibility, more in its original appeal to all those who like the Tommy Wiseau phenomenon, or are just beginning to like him thanks to this celebratory fad. An energetic experience that I'll gladly watch again several times just for my own love of the craft of filmmaking, and I'll cherish that love over and over again, just as I did with the endearingly bad but no less earnest The Room. (10.01.2018)

I haven't seen The Room and this kind of film is not exactly my cup of tea, but James Franco manages to impress with his exceptional acting and I even had a few good laughs. I enjoyed the behind the scenes during filming and a few familiar faces in shorter roles. An interesting film. 75% (05.01.2018)

The comparison to Burton's Ed Wood, which many commentators resort to, is logical and The Disaster Artist does not come out of it with honor in any way. James Franco still has a long way to go to be a master and above all, he lacks imagination. It's simply not a playful Burton-like film and it can't do anything other than parasitize on the legendary flop The Room. There is nothing else here than mechanical copying, while Tommy Wiseau is portrayed as a completely uncharismatic and, unfortunately, also downright annoying guy, who annoys the viewer with his performances. Much more could have been extracted from the source material. Overall impression: 45%. (31.12.2021)

Despite everything that Franco says about his project, which is parroted by publicists and talk-show hosts, The Disaster Artist is not a good film. Above all, it lacks not only real drama and heart, but also proper insight into the characters’ inner selves. Unlike Burton’s frequently recalled Ed Wood, The Disaster Artist does not bring forth any new or remotely intense or deeply felt view of Tommy Wiseau and his egocentric creative abortion, The Room. It merely repeats what has already been said many times, literally turning observations, which occur to truly everyone while watching The Room, into film sequences and only points out the inconsistencies and ambiguities in the myth that has grown up around the film and its creator, but without following up on them. The result is only a succession of freakshow vignettes in which Franco makes faces and pretends to give a great acting performance. Paradoxically, however, the closing comparison of the original scenes from The Room and their reconstructions by the Franco brothers and company shows that Franco is only mimicking Wiseau pretty much in the same way that a number of The Room fans did before and after him when talking about the film with friends and “re-enacting” the most bizarre sequences. The main drawback of The Disaster Artist is Franco himself. He is a workaholic with a pathological fear of standing still even for a moment. Because of that, his filmography is astonishing in terms of the number of projects he manages to bring to fruition every year as a producer, director and actor. However, the sad truth remains that Franco is not a multitasking genius but, like the vast majority of us, simply a person with limited capacity. In the field of acting, that can still be masked by fleeting effort and the work of make-up artists and costume designers, but Franco’s directing projects are a prime example of unrealised potential. Franco is incapable of fully focusing on one thing for several months, let alone years, as proper directors do, nor does he have his own distinctive style that would make his projects stand out (such as in the case of craftsmen Takashi Miike and Seijun Suzuki). For Franco, each film is just one of a thousand items on an ever-expanding “to do” list that give him a momentary diversion. Whereas that doesn’t particularly matter in the case of stylish hokum like Future World, The Disaster Artist would deserve to be handled by someone other than a fantasist with ADHD who tries to make himself into a great auteur by diving into the role while communicating with everyone during shooting by parodying Wiseau. The documentary project A Room Full of Spoons, with whose creators Wiseau engaged in litigation, offers hope in this respect, as the filmmakers allowed themselves to do what Franco did not do, which is that they aimed to uncover the major issues surrounding The Room – where Tommy comes from, how old is he and where he get the money for the film. (12.07.2018)

James Franco is one the most active and creative members of the Hollywood crowd. In addition to comedies, he is often interested in more serious themes, and Disaster Artist is in a similarly serious spirit, even though it is actually revolving around a completely absurd affair. But I like the way he conveyed it. He portrayed the main character in such a way that he deserves at least an Oscar nomination. His creation treats every scene of the film this movie is about in a great detail. You won’t see how a movie is made every day, so you can appreciate a lot of such behind-the-scene moments. It’s a film worthy of attention and I now definitely want to see the original film this movie is about. Such a film story could have been written only by life itself. (13.04.2019)