In recent years The Room from 2003 has taken the ‘accolade’ of worst film in history from Plan Nine From Outer Space. I was intending to watch The Room before seeing The Disaster Artist, which chronicles the making of that film, but I couldn’t bring myself to sit through it!
I personally don’t think it spoiled my enjoyment of this pretty funny telling of the story of the mysterious Tommy Wiseau (James Franco). He is a terrible and therefore unemployed actor in San Francisco who decides to go to Los Angeles to make it big in movies, taking his fellow actor, Greg (Dave Franco) with him. Neither of them find any work so they decide to make a movie of their own that Tommy also writes, directs and produces. Quite where he got the more than $6 million dollars to make, publicise and distribute the movie remains a mystery, as does where Tommy comes from.
The filming of the dreadful film is shown in a lot of detail, and I found myself laughing whilst I also cringed with embarrassment a lot of the time. However, I never empathised with Tommy, as I did with Ed Wood, the director of Plan 9, in the film of the same name from 1994, despite the efforts to ramp-up the emotion and make Tommy more likeable at the film’s premiere.
Both the Franco’s give accurate impersonations but the acting plaudits have to go to an impressive supporting cast, notably Seth Rogan, Paul Scheer, and Alison Brie.
Rating: 7.5 out of 10