The Disaster Artist
Jul. 17th, 2018 08:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerI think I would have enjoyed The Disaster Artist more if I hadn’t read the book. The movie is centered on the weird, emotionally convoluted friendship between Tommy Wiseau and Greg Sesteros, and this is just the sort of thing that I like - but having read the book, I know that the real thing was even more bizarre than the movie showed, so I ended up feeling cheated.
I just didn’t think the filmmakers quite got either character, and this particularly bothered me in the case of Greg. (Tommy Wiseau, after all, is a living embodiment of the principle that truth is stranger than fiction.) The main question in any version The Disaster Artist, IMO, is “Why does Greg put up with Tommy’s general Tomminess?”, and the filmmakers answer this by positing that Greg needs Tommy: Tommy shows Greg how to free up his emotion as an actor, Tommy gives him the opportunity to act that no one else will give him.
The first part was an element in their friendship: Greg first introduced himself to Tommy because he was fascinated by the raw off-the-walls emotion Tommy brought to a scene in their acting class. But I don’t think it was as dominant as the film suggests. And the second part is a real oversimplification, and one that makes their relationship much less interesting.
Greg needed Tommy’s help to move to LA (Tommy lent Greg his apartment, which made the move possible), but he didn’t need him after that, and what makes their relationship interesting is the fact that Greg nonetheless stuck around for so long. What made him put up with Tommy’s weird habits like, say, installing a pull-up bar in the doorway of Greg’s room and using it while Greg tried to sleep?
The movie shows the pull-up bar, but not the doing-pull-ups-while-Greg-tries-to-sleep thing. How could you leave that out?
They also left out the part when Greg is about to move to Los Angeles with Tommy, and Greg’s mom - less than pleased that her handsome nineteen-year-old son is about to move in with an older man of indeterminate age and vaguely creepy manner - marches up to Tommy and barks, “No sex, Tommy!” How could you cut that? That moment is gold.
(It bothered me that Greg was played by an actor who was very visibly not nineteen. Normally I wouldn’t care, but the movie makes such a big point about the fact Tommy is clearly much older than he says that it’s very distracting that Greg is also at least thirty.)
Anyway. I guess I can see why the movie settled for the interpretation it did, because it’s not like the book exactly answers the question of why Greg hangs out with Tommy for so long. Does he feel compassion for Tommy’s clear isolation? Or fascination to see what weird thing Tommy will do next? Does he get a kick out of watching Tommy break social mores, or is it largely inertia - it’s just too much trouble to move out of Tommy’s apartment?
It’s a mystery, possibly even to Greg himself, and that - not the mysteries of Tommy Wiseau’s real age or country of origin or source of wealth - is what makes The Disaster Artist such a compelling book. It’s too bad that the movie tried to answer the question instead of embracing the enigma.
I just didn’t think the filmmakers quite got either character, and this particularly bothered me in the case of Greg. (Tommy Wiseau, after all, is a living embodiment of the principle that truth is stranger than fiction.) The main question in any version The Disaster Artist, IMO, is “Why does Greg put up with Tommy’s general Tomminess?”, and the filmmakers answer this by positing that Greg needs Tommy: Tommy shows Greg how to free up his emotion as an actor, Tommy gives him the opportunity to act that no one else will give him.
The first part was an element in their friendship: Greg first introduced himself to Tommy because he was fascinated by the raw off-the-walls emotion Tommy brought to a scene in their acting class. But I don’t think it was as dominant as the film suggests. And the second part is a real oversimplification, and one that makes their relationship much less interesting.
Greg needed Tommy’s help to move to LA (Tommy lent Greg his apartment, which made the move possible), but he didn’t need him after that, and what makes their relationship interesting is the fact that Greg nonetheless stuck around for so long. What made him put up with Tommy’s weird habits like, say, installing a pull-up bar in the doorway of Greg’s room and using it while Greg tried to sleep?
The movie shows the pull-up bar, but not the doing-pull-ups-while-Greg-tries-to-sleep thing. How could you leave that out?
They also left out the part when Greg is about to move to Los Angeles with Tommy, and Greg’s mom - less than pleased that her handsome nineteen-year-old son is about to move in with an older man of indeterminate age and vaguely creepy manner - marches up to Tommy and barks, “No sex, Tommy!” How could you cut that? That moment is gold.
(It bothered me that Greg was played by an actor who was very visibly not nineteen. Normally I wouldn’t care, but the movie makes such a big point about the fact Tommy is clearly much older than he says that it’s very distracting that Greg is also at least thirty.)
Anyway. I guess I can see why the movie settled for the interpretation it did, because it’s not like the book exactly answers the question of why Greg hangs out with Tommy for so long. Does he feel compassion for Tommy’s clear isolation? Or fascination to see what weird thing Tommy will do next? Does he get a kick out of watching Tommy break social mores, or is it largely inertia - it’s just too much trouble to move out of Tommy’s apartment?
It’s a mystery, possibly even to Greg himself, and that - not the mysteries of Tommy Wiseau’s real age or country of origin or source of wealth - is what makes The Disaster Artist such a compelling book. It’s too bad that the movie tried to answer the question instead of embracing the enigma.
no subject
Date: 2018-07-17 10:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-07-17 10:54 pm (UTC)Also, the movie's attempt to make Greg look more normal ends up making him look kind of parasitic: he's hanging out with Tommy for the free apartment (which in real life he paid rent for, although Tommy didn't cash it for a while and then cashed it all in one go in a burst of pique) and the movie role (which in real life he didn't want and had to be bamboozled into taking). Maybe they felt they needed some reason for Greg to hang out with Tommy, but it's disappointing that the only thing they could come up with was "self-serving material gain."
no subject
Date: 2018-07-19 02:10 pm (UTC)And the question of why Greg stays an active friend for so long is such a good one, and all your possible answers seem, well, really possible to me--and yet they're so different one from the next (compassion versus voyeurism versus inertia!) As you say, it's possible Greg himself doesn't know; I've felt that way sometimes, in friendships.
no subject
Date: 2018-07-19 04:25 pm (UTC)I imagine that many of those motives may have played a role - plus also a certain amount of "Is he going to be okay if I leave him alone?" Friendships can be complicated.