The idea of a movie being "so bad it's good" is a concept that's been around almost since the dawn of the format. It's the concept that a film can have a certain level of incompetence, yet still maintain a charm usually saved for the scholarly movies where every detail has been pondered over. In the short existence of the 21st century, director Tommy Wiseau's The Room has been hailed as "the greatest worst movie ever made," and for good reason. However, it's not just a bad movie. It's a work of art, and writers Greg Sestero and Tom Bissell create a surreal vision of Wiseau's inability to be a master filmmaker, jumping between sympathy and animosity almost every other paragraph. It's a humorous read, but what makes it an effective piece to The Room's cult-like mythology is that even when acknowledging the problems, Sestero still loves Wiseau and "The Disaster Artist" is a story of an unlikely friendship.
The very idea of Wiseau is an anomaly. He is a self-proclaimed "young man" who looks to be in his 50's, has a large bank account but never seems to work, and loves being All-American despite a sometimes unintelligible grasp on English. He is a tragic figure in his inability to understand societal norms, and he would never be mistaken as a Hollywood elite. He is a perplexing figure in that way, and a part of why The Room is such a curiosity. It's a film by someone with the passion but not the focus to tell a story he claims to be inspired by both Tennessee Williams and The Talented Mr. Ripley (Sestero claims that the character Mark is named after the actor "Mark Damon"). His love for melodrama bled into his life, where he would attend acting classes and perform traditional dialogues in controversial manners. He is fearless and defiant, even as he longs to be accepted.
Sestero is more of a traditional actor, and Wiseau's golden boy. So to have him provide his candid response to Wiseau gives the story a perfect crux, splitting chapters between the duo's early days, and the production on The Room. There was never a point where Wiseau technically made sense, but Sestero's sympathy for a man who embraced the idea of living on his own planet became the endearing center of the story. Wiseau was the friend with advantages thanks to a "bottomless pit" of a bank account. There's never a point where Sestero's commentary doesn't feature something self-effacing, becoming unapologetic when he describes the lunacy of phone conversations, odd restaurant visits, or how the bearded Sestero looks like Kirk Douglas in Spartacus only to have Wiseau ignore Douglas when he appears publicly (also, he doesn't have a beard). The humor is usually playful, or based in an understanding of Sestero's own career frustrations, which differ from those of director James Franco's adaptation (it's also more intricate on pre-Room productions).
It's important to understand Wiseau and Sestero's relationship before The Room in part because it helps to understand Wiseau's intent. Even if the real man is never fully understood, his struggle to be accepted is totally clear. He is a man who loves attention but maintains a privacy, or a denial, of himself. His insecurities come out in his lack of acting and directing skills, impatiently shooting scenes ineptly. As funny as these on set tantrums may sound, there's an underlying sense of sadness in his narcissism, making one both love and hate Wiseau as Sestero does. It's a miracle that it's over a decade later and the film is still being discussed. The book ends not by embracing the many errors of the film (though Sestero is candid about that) but that it's something that Wiseau was proud of. For all of the errors on display, it's what he wanted to make, and that's heartwarming in spite of the countless ridicules.
The reason that the book works is more than because Wiseau is one of the craziest, most unprecedented filmmakers of the modern era. He may defy the traditional structure of a Hollywood career, but his outsider nature makes him the perfect metaphor for the friend who feels left out. Even if the pairing with Sestero is strange, there's a deeper sympathy between them that makes the small fights and pointless exchanges feel more universal. This is a bad film that endures because there's passion behind it. Wiseau may not know how to express himself (literally or cinematically), but the film leaves clues into who he is and what his passions are. The small idiosyncrasies from logic create a vision of someone who loves what it is but not how it is. While the story is chummy, Sestero never holds back from criticizing his friend, of whom he seems to be indebted to even at the threat of divorcing from each other.
Wiseau has claimed that "The Disaster Artist" isn't a totally accurate portrayal of events. It's hard to say, as even Franco's film differs significantly on small details (in the book, Wiseau met Sestero's mom at a train station, not their house). Yet the one thing that may annoy Wiseau is how he comes across, whether or not it's honest. Behavior that may seem normal to him is described in condescension by Sestero, possibly revealing private events that Wiseau is too scared to share. The Room production also paints him as an egotistical leader with no skill, which may differ from how he perceives himself as well. There's a lot that is unpleasant if you're Tommy Wiseau reading "The Disaster Artist." You're both the unintentional genius and the worst person on Earth. Still, Sestero's saving grace is that he empathizes enough with him that the final vision becomes one for Wiseau, who probably wouldn't get far in Hollywood, even with the S.A.G. card that he bought his way in with.
In a lot of ways, The Room has parallels with Plan 9 from Outer Space: a universally panned movie from director Edward D. Wood Jr. about grave-robbing aliens. The only difference is that that film was based largely in a mythology cribbed from later accounts. The Room is a film where its creators are still alive, and who manage to embrace the strange moments of movie magic. "The Disaster Artist" is a quintessential book about film making and friendship, in large part because it's mythology from the people who created it. Whether or not it really happened this way, Sestero and Bissell's prose creates a fascinating look into a partnership of outcasts who had no choice but to take a chance on each other. By doing so, they created something iconic. It may not be the iconic that most people would be happy to be, but Wiseau is a good sport about it for the most part.
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