The Disaster Artist

The astounding achievement here is not the meticulous reproduction of scenes--or mis-scenes, if you will--from Tommy Wiseau's disasterpiece The Room; it's the level of sympathy and understanding that the Franco brothers are able to produce for the unyieldingly idiosyncratic auteur. They clearly admire something in the determination--or, perhaps, chutzpah--of the severely untalented would-be movie star; maybe they recognize some piece of themselves in Wiseau, a sense of "there but for the grace of God..." Indeed, by making a comedy about the making of the unintentional comedy, the brothers, one could argue, have actually been derivative of a work that would otherwise be a target of sheer mockery. As for this movie, it is funny, though not non-stop laughs; occasionally, the recreation is cringeworthy, sort of like watching scenes from the UK version of The Office (Wiseau and David Brent have a lot in common). All in all, the whole package is entertaining enough to make this film a good watch, especially if you stick around for the ending--when clips from both films are played side-by-side for comparison--and the post-credits scene, where the doppelgangers meet. Hopefully, everyone who is this hopeless can have his or her moment of triumph--and perhaps this flick can light that way.