In 2003, a movie called The Room was released into a single theater in Los Angeles. The movie, which was theoretically a drama about relationships and love, was a laughingstock - it was incoherent, poorly shot, poorly acted, horrifically written, nonsensical, and just generally a trainwreck. Somehow, it attracted a cult following, and nowadays, you can find it playing at midnight showings all over the place, as people go to revel in the insanity. I'm a big fan of The Room, and I don't typically buy into the whole "so bad it's good" idea. But The Room doesn't really fit that category - it's so clearly a labor of love, so clearly a passion project that it's impossible not to find it charming in its insanity. Now, Greg Sestero, one of the film's stars, has written (with the help of co-writer Tom Bissell) The Disaster Artist, his account of the making of the film and his friendship with the film's writer/director/star/producer, the wholly unique Tommy Wiseau. And the result is every bit as fascinating and hilarious as I hoped it would be. The making of the film is every bit as insane as you might think and more so - by the time I got to Tommy's ambitious plans for using the green screen, I was in tears, and it only got worse from there, as Tommy abused his cast and crew, led them in patriotic chants, stumbled through single words of dialogue, and yet somehow managed to complete the movie. But what really makes The Disaster Artist is Sestero's glimpse into the enigmatic and bizarre Wiseau. Over the course of their friendship, Wiseau was capable of vast generosity and insane paranoia, sexual jealousy and deep friendship, over-sharing and zealous privacy, and more. And while Sestero never quite cracks some of Tommy's mysteries, the hints we get help us to understand the troubled, angry, frustrated figure we see at the core of The Room, even if it doesn't justify him. Part struggling actor memoir, part character study, part making-of story, The Disaster Artist is one of the funniest books I've read this year, and the fact that it's all true only makes it all the better. If you're worried that The Disaster Artist might ruin the magic of The Room for you, don't; if anything, it only makes it wonderful all over again, as we get glimpses into the "reason" behind all the madness. If you're a fan of The Room, The Disaster Artist is absolutely essential reading; if you're not, you still might be fascinated by this glimpse at the Hollywood dream gone horribly, horribly wrong.
- Josh Mauthe
- Josh Mauthe
