Hilarious, even if you haven't seen the Room.

Rating: 9/10 (13 December 2017)

***TL;DR - Really funny film about a classic cult movie with great starring performance from James Franco, a killer script with a unique true story and still accessible for everyone who hasn't seen The Room (although it may be worth watching The Room beforehand, it isn't necessary at all). Only criticism is that it should be longer, because it's so funny. 9/10***
It would be wrong to call The Disaster Artist a film about the creation of The Room, because it's so much more. It's a story about film-making, friendship and failure. Epic failure. It is about what happens when you follow your dreams regardless of those who doubt you, those who tell them that you're not good enough - but instead of proving the doubters wrong, you fail so badly that fourteen years later James Franco creates an Oscar-worthy film just so people can laugh at how badly you failed. Believe it or not, this is a true story about an actual film in 2003 (the biggest complaint from test audiences was that they thought The Room could not possibly exist).
James Franco puts in the performance of a lifetime as the title character Tommy Wiseau. Any decent Hollywood actor can pull off an impersonation of someone like Tommy for a cheap laugh, but James Franco does better - he disappears into Wiseau so totally that even the parts of the film which don't directly deal with The Room or some aspect of Wiseau's background are really funny. People who haven't even heard of Tommy at the start can, by the end, understand his crazed psyche - it's not just one big Room in-joke. I'm glad he was nominated for a Golden Globe - he deserves it.
Another aspect of the film which went above and beyond my expectations was the screenplay. The writers manage to strike a balance between references and homage to The Room and Tommy Wiseau, and accessible and funny original humour. One of the reasons why The Room has developed such a cult is because it is so quotable (from 'Oh hai Mark' to 'Anyway, how is your sex life?' and a million lines between). The writers aren't content with referencing these quotes to comedic effect, they create their own quotes which will, if you ask me, become iconic quotes in their own right. They also didn't restrict themselves to a comedy-of-errors style narrative, and one of my favourite aspects of the story was the friendship between Greg and Tommy (which is touching but not overblown), as well as some of the more serious themes of unfulfilled dreams and how ruthless the industry can be (Tommy ended up paying 6 million US Dollars in budget, partly because the industry took advantage of how naive he was).
Overall, the acting was good, although it is difficult to act when you have a character who is as scene-stealing as Tommy Wiseau. I think the cast did an admirable job, especially Dave Franco, Seth Rogen and Zac Efron as Chris-R. The list of cameos goes on and on, and the smaller roles really helped breathe life into the movie.
I felt the film was a bit short, and could have explored some of the topics it touched on in greater detail. The laughter at the end (in the premiere scene) was over-the-top and only really served to affirm what we already know: it's a bad film. I also felt there were a couple of unnecessary scenes which could have been exchanged for scenes which drove the plot forward or explored some of the more interesting and crazy aspects of The Room (for example, Johnny was originally going to be revealed as a Vampire).
This film is hilarious, even if you haven't seen the Room. It brings a great cult movie into the mainstream by allowing there to be in-jokes for the Room crowd but also making the jokes aimed at non-Room fans funny for everyone. It is also a touching story about friendship and about how not everyone can achieve their dreams (although in Tommy's case this is because of a severe lack of talent more than anything else). It has brilliant acting, a laugh-out-loud script, a true story which you couldn't make up and celebrity cameos for days. It also has just the right amount of heart without becoming sappy.
I would give it a 9/10 rating and I would recommend it to any film fan who doesn't already have it on their radar, especially fans of comedy. If you haven't already seen The Room, it may be worth watching it beforehand, but you'll still have a great time if you haven't (I went with a few of my friends who haven't seen The Room and they could not stop laughing). To quote Wiseau himself: "Haha! What a story, Mark."