James Franco is no latecomer to “The Room” party. Back in 2013, the actor/writer/director/producer penned a piece for Vice about Tommy Wiseau‘s cult favorite, and the book written by Greg Sestero that would eventually become the source material for “The Disaster Artist.” And the conclusion of the piece crystallizes everything Franco brings to his movie, which is loving towards Wiseau, even as it recognizes his flaws and absurdities:
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This is the deeper level of Tommy: he is just a lonely little boy who wants love. He, like so many people with stars in their eyes, sees film not only as a medium of expression, but the gate to acceptance. It is the place where his work will find like-minded people who will learn to love him through his work, not only because of it. This is the hope of most artists, and the book turns Tommy’s sometimes ridiculous struggle into a paradigm for those wishing to be creative in a world where it is usually too hard to be.
In so many ways, Tommy c’est moi.
Well, Franco got to become Wiseau with “The Disaster Artist,” and pays tribute to the “The Room” throughout the film, with obsessively accurate recreations of scenes from the film. In fact, Franco shot about a half-hour of material, and while only a portion of it ended up in the movie, the DVD and Blu-ray will have it all. Until then, here’s a taste with about a minute Franco’s remake (of sorts) of sequences of “The Room” — it’s pretty great. After that, you watch Franco and Wiseau chat up “The Room” and “The Disaster Artist” on “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”
“The Disaster Artist” opens this weekend.