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Movie Review | The Disaster Artist
Movie summary: When Greg Sestero, an aspiring film actor, meets the weird and mysterious Tommy Wiseau in an acting class, they form a unique friendship and travel to Hollywood to make their dreams come true. (IMDb)
This won't be a particularly long review as I haven't seen The Room, which The Disaster Artist dramatises the making of, so you might get more out of this movie than I did if you have seen Tommy Wiseau's 'masterpiece' already.
James and Dave Franco play Tommy Wiseau and Greg Sestero respectively, and the brothers' clear chemistry working with each other completely sells you on why two such different people could wind up becoming friends.
It helps with one of the biggest issues with The Disaster Artist, which is that there are so many far-fetched moments that you have to remind yourself that everything you see actually did happen - or at least a version of it at any rate.
These moments do make the film very funny though, especially when combined with some very (intentionally) awkward humour that'll leave you squirming in your seat. This awkwardness also helps sell you on the fact that these events happened, feeling almost akin to a hidden camera of documentary feel rather than something scripted.
The biggest issue though, is that there are so many 'non-normal' moments that they do slowly stack up across the course of the film and provide a barrier to stop you really connecting with the characters, which makes the ending fall a little flat despite the fun on the way there.
The Disaster Artist is an enjoyable film even if, like me, you haven't seen The Room. It can be more than a little awkward to watch at times - although this is intentional - and does suffer from the whole 'truth being stranger than fiction' thing, which might alienate some from the movie.
