In 1998, Greg Sestero meets Tommy Wiseau at an acting class. Tommy's older (though he claims not to be), very cagey about his past in general and clearly lying about where he's from. He's also a terrible actor, but Greg is impressed by Tommy's complete fearlessness in front of an audience and the two set out to LA to try and make their fortunes.
Neither of them enjoy much success, leading to Greg's frustrated outburst "I wish we could just make our own movie". To the younger man's surprise, Tommy seizes on the idea, producing a script and funding the production of a film. Where Tommy got the money for this - the budget is estimated as $6 million - is still not known today.
Of course, Tommy intends to produce, direct and star in his film, despite his lack of knowledge of the technical aspects of movie-making and his bargain basement acting skills. The resulting production would ramble through all kinds of strange behaviour - stranger even than the script, which was quite odd to begin with - emerging in 2003 as The Room, which is widely regarded as one of the most compellingly awful films ever made.
The Disaster Artist is a well-made film with good performances, quite unlike the travesty whose production it depicts, and yet I found it much less enjoyable than the weird and misshapen film that Wiseau produced. Much of The Disaster Artist relies on the awkwardness that Wiseau's behaviour frequently creates, which is not really my kind of thing, and honestly I feel like watching Tommy Wiseau's actual madcap creation better captures what a strange individual he really is.
The Room is a fascinatingly dreadful film. This is a competence one, but somehow less interesting for it.
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