A funny but loving look at a man who was driven by his dreams and (in one way or another) succeeded

Rating: 8/10 (1 August 2018)

A loving Hollywood take on an unlikely friendship and the story of making The Room, a film so bad it's frequently referred to as 'the Citizen Kane of bad movies'.
It never feels like the team behind The Disaster Artist are bullying or mocking Tommy Wiseau, the man behind The Room and played by James Franco in this affectionate story of its creation. They come close a couple of times and it certainly doesn't paint him in a positive light overall, but it shows him to be a driven man with little talent and a big dream ... if no one will hire him to be in a film then he'll make his own.
James Franco transforms himself convincingly and lovingly into Wiseau - he nails the laugh and the way Tommy would brush his long hair out of his eyes - while his brother Dave Franco plays co-star and close friend Greg Sistero (who wrote the book of the same name on which The Disaster Artist is based, so the specifics of each scene should be taken with more than just a pinch of salt). Seth Rogen has a secondary role as the original script supervisor (and later the unofficial de-facto director) while other familiar faces such as Sharon Stone, Zac Efron and Bryan Cranston all make brief cameo appearances.
All the key scenes are referenced ("Cheep cheep cheep!", "I definitely have breast cancer" and the anatomically inaccurate sex scene(s) to name a few) if not in the film itself then in the side-by-side comparisons between the 'remake' and the original classic before the end credits roll. Speaking of the credits, this is one film where it's actually worth sticking around to see the post-credits scene in which the real Tommy Wiseau has a strange conversation with Franco's incarnation.
It certainly helps to have seen the 'source material' to fully appreciate some scenes but even if you haven't, the jokes and observations made about the resulting film are echoed on the set as they would've been by the audience watching the film for the first time. The Disaster Artist could so easily have been scene after scene of remaking and mocking the original's ineptitude but instead it's a loving tribute to the drive of one man to do anything in his power to follow his dream and become a star.