I was expecting something more

Rating: Null/10 (22 February 2018)

According to conventional wisdom, the secret to a long life is an abudance of good laughs. If that is the case, then I can probably expect to become a supercentenarian, all thanks to The Room. Although I can think of plenty of comedies, no film that I'm aware of is so hilarious that you laugh in tears even when reading its Wikipedia article. No film other than The Room, that is.
The news that Greg Sestero (who played Mark in The Room) had written a book about making the film went completely unnoticed by me back in 2014. Luckily, big Hollywood movies are almost always advertised so aggressively that it's hard not to become aware of their existence so when I heard that "The Disaster Artist" would premiere in a few weeks, I decided to first read the book the movie was based on and then watch the movie. And I'm glad I did read the book because apart from the frequent good laughs, the whole story behind the making The Room is ultimately very moving. This is what ultimately took me away with the book. It is easy to see The Room just as a by-product of bad writing or horrible acting, but it's much more. It's Tommy's planet, the only world where he has the success and the friends that permeate the American dream he so desperately wants to live. It's also a process, much more journey than destination, where using an expensive green screen set to depict an alley that exists in reality a stone's throw away is the natural thing to do, because that's how things are done in Hollywood, the ultimate standard of success. The Room can actually be seen as a desperate attempt to alter reality when you just can't fit in it.
Already in the beginning of the movie, I knew that this aspect was not what the movie attempted to convey to the viewer. Why? When adapting a book to a film, you obviously have to select what parts of the book that should be included in the film and what parts to ditch. And, in order to avoid subsequent plot holes or to make the movie more consistent, the director is usually obliged to add elements to the film that can't be found in the book. So much is clear, and no film maker can be judged for doing this. Instead, the relevant question is what to omit and how to bind together the parts that make it to the film. In this case, the choice was to render the production of The Room truthfully while describing the events that led to the production of The Room with more artistic freedom. In doing so, I feel like the movie fails to transmit essential parts of the story of The Room.
The biggest problem I have with the movie is the way it portrays the relationship between Greg and Tommy. Contrary to what actually happened and what is described in the book, Greg and Tommy are essentially seen in the movie as different formations of the same desire to become the famous movie star and who then combine forces to make a movie of their own and realize their ambitious, mutual dream. This portrayal completely distorts the actual, fascinating dynamics between the characters: how Tommy is able to exert power on Greg by keeping Greg's aspirations of an acting career alive, how Greg's own small successes manifest the unreachability of Tommy's idealistic, imagined idea of the perfect, desireable dream life and how the two, despite being almost the reverse of each other, in the midst of everything are still able to form something of a friendship. This crucial element of the book gone, I felt like what was left in the movie was just the body of the story with most of the soul gone.
That said, the movie is not bad per se. There are numerous hilarious scenes and James Franco does a really spotless job of portraying the wonderfully eccentric character of Tommy Wiseau. But at the end of the day, it comes out as quite a superficial, unmemorable performance. After all, it isn't as moving or witty or as the book. And it certainly isn't as laugh-evoking as The Room.