Pretty different to the book but awesome regardless

Rating: 8/10 (19 November 2017)

I was really lucky to be able to see the preview screening of The Disaster Artist at the Hayden Orpheum in Sydney last weekend. I don't think I had ever been this excited to see a film, ever.
I'd seen The Room countless times and listened to The Disaster Artist audio book twice (which I highly recommend, as Greg Sestero's narration is amazing) so I had a general idea of what to expect from this film.
Compared to the book though, I thought the movie was romanticised a bit too much. There were quite a few differences between the book and movie in regards to how things happened and the dynamic between characters. I guess changes are normally expected with adaptations, but I think here it felt like some things were purposely glossed over particularly in regards to how Tommy was portrayed.
The film makes Greg Sestero and Tommy Wiseau's relationship look a lot sweeter than how Greg wrote it. In reality, Tommy was extremely jealous of Greg's early successes and was constantly trying to compete with him. In the movie we see Greg give Tommy the idea to make The Room, when in fact Tommy had decided to make it just to one up Greg. On the other hand in the book it felt like Greg really looked down on and resented Tommy; but we get a much warmer, sympathetic portrayal from Dave Franco.
In the movie Tommy is constantly referred to as some kind of a monster, but I just don't think we see enough of that side. We're shown a Tommy that is sensitive, insecure and completely aware that Hollywood doesn't care for him. This isn't so bad because it helps the audience really feel for the guy. However, (again the way Greg wrote him) not only was Tommy delusional, he was also really cheap, pompous, manipulative and just down right mean to everyone. I think I would have loved the movie even more if I had seen more of this mayhem in the film.
The Disaster Artist book was really candid and chaotic and just didn't feel like the film was as much. I've read that Tommy in life tries really, really hard to protect his image and hasn't really accepted the reason why he's so popular (see his boycotting of the 'A Room Full of Spoons' documentary), so I'm guessing he had some kind of heavy input into watering down the intensity of his character and the story in the film. I think if this hadn't been a factor, the movie would have been even more hysterical.
James Franco's portrayal of Tommy was absolutely incredible. His accent was a little muddy at times which made it difficult to understand what he was saying, but other than that he did an amazing job. The bromance between Tommy and Greg on screen was really heartwarming too. I was sad that the movie wasn't longer, because I felt like there was so much more to see and it all went by way too fast.
Overall, The Disaster Artist was a really funny, bittersweet, touching movie and I can't wait to see it again!