First Take: The Disaster Artist- I still didn’t hit her, I did not… oh hai Mark

SYNOPSIS: When Greg Sestero, an aspiring film actor, meets
the weird and mysterious Tommy Wiseau in an acting class, they form a unique
friendship and travel to Hollywood to make their dreams come true.

The Room. Seminal bad movie masterpiece. Ridiculously well
documented by one of its stars in a book. Now, said book is finally on the big
screen, and the adaptation certainly delivers on the hype, both paying homage
to and honouring the roots of this generation’s equivalent to Rocky Horror.

James Franco is the man tasked with directing the film, and
he does an incredible job, delivering a 1 hour 46 minute piece that has the emotion
nailed, the style of Wiseau’s filmmaking perfected, and pacing that is pretty
much bang on the money, and working to a script from Scott Neustadter and
Michael H. Weber, this has all the makings of a major player for this awards
season- considering the subject of the film, this is very impressive indeed. It
is shot brilliantly by Brandon Trost, and with the score from Breaking Bad’s
musical genius Dave Porter, the technical aspects are spot on.

The performances are really where this film excels. The
Franco brothers finally get to work together on a film, with James playing
Tommy Wiseau and Dave playing Greg Sestero, and both of them are on fire
throughout, with some great supporting work from Seth Rogen, Alison Brie, Ari
Graynor, Zac Efron and a vast amount of cameos (one of which you should stay
until the very end for, it’s one for die hard fans of The Room), this is a mega
ensemble piece worthy of telling the tale of one director’s mission to make a
film that ultimately made a mark on the industry.

THE VERDICT

With the right level of jokes to seriousness, The Disaster
Artist is a solid effort to bring the craziness of The Room to a mainstream
audience. Sure, it’s not on a full saturation release, but this is certainly a
film to track down.

RATING: 4/5