The irony - it burns.
James Franco's long-awaited biopic on the behind-the-scenes story of the "world's worst film" finally debuted at SXSW Festival earlier this week and the reviews have begun to trickle out online. So far, The Disaster Artist currently has a 92% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, whilst Metacritic has combined score of 82% so far. Just for comparison, The Room has a 32% rating on Rotten Tomatoes - and most of those are from midnight screenings of the film after it became a cult classic.
Digging down into the reviews for The Disaster Artist, HeyUGuys called Franco's performance a "career-best", saying that "nothing this good has ever come from something so bad." Variety's Peter Debruge, meanwhile, said that the film has "a genuine capacity to delight, whether or not the audiences in question have seen The Room."
The Playlist called Franco as Wiseau "his best performance since his Oscar-nominated turn in 127 Hours and as a director it is nice to finally seem him embrace the comfort zone of comedy with enough cameos to rival Robert Altman's The Player," rating the film with a B+ score.
Franco both directs and stars as Tommy Wiseau, the actor-writer-producer-director of The Room. The film itself is based on Greg Sestero's memoir of the production, who is played by Franco's younger brother, Dave, in the film. Seth Rogen, Bryan Cranston, Alison Brie, Zac Efron and Kate Upton all have supporting roles in the film, and it's understood that Wiseau himself has seen the film and given his approval.
So far, there's no word on any screenings here in Ireland and it's not yet certain if the film will be released theatrically in Ireland - but here's hoping because this sounds like it could be a classic waiting to happen.
Via Variety / Playlist / HeyUGuys
