The Disaster Artist (James Franco, 2017)

Dave Franco and James Franco in The Disaster Artist

Greg Sestero: Dave Franco
Tommy Wiseau: James Franco
Sandy: Seth Rogen
Juliette: Ari Graynor
Amber: Alison Brie
Carolyn: Jacki Weaver
Raphael: Paul Scheer
Dan / Chris-R: Zac Efron
Philip / Denny: Josh Hutcherson
Robin: June Diane Raphael
Mrs. Sestero: Megan Mullally
Iris Burton: Sharon Stone
Jean Shelton: Melanie Griffith

Director: James Franco
Screenplay: Scott Neustadter, Michael H. Weber
Based on a book by Greg Sestero and Tom Bissell
Cinematography: Brandon Trost
Production design: Chris L. Spellman
Film editing: Stacey Schroeder
Music: Dave Porter

The title, The Disaster Artist, doesn't refer directly to James Franco, but it sometimes seems as if it should. In a year full of men stepping on their own genitalia, Franco's misstep was particularly painful. Just as the raves were coming in not only for his directing and acting in The Disaster Artist but also for his work in a dual role on HBO's The Deuce, there came a series of allegations of sexual misconduct dating back to 2014. Franco had been thought to be a strong contender for Oscar nominations for both directing and acting, but was shut out of those categories: The Disaster Artist received only one nomination, for the screenplay by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber. We're not at the point yet where recent filmmakers' work can be judged independently of their personal lives -- the way, say, we appreciate the work of past artists without referring to the less admirable sides of their lives. To the extent that I can shut out Franco's alleged misconduct from any consideration of his movie, I have to say that it's a delight, a witty, observant portrait of a grandly mysterious eccentric whose age, country of origin, and source of income have still never been fully documented. It's also a film about the movies, about the joy and pain of making them, exhilarating even when the product, Tommy Wiseau's The Room (2003), is widely derided as one of the worst movies ever made. Franco's performance is a great gallery of mannerisms into which the actor himself fully disappears -- although there are some who would say that Franco's own reputation for ego-tripping is an essential jumping-off point for the character. But the film is also a directorial showcase, in which Franco shows skill that his other work hadn't previously manifested. The Disaster Artist is full of tasty bits, such as Melanie Griffith's cameo as an acting teacher and Sharon Stone's as an agent. As Greg Sestero, Dave Franco serves to keep the wacked-out narrative on course, and it's fun to watch the brothers play off of each other.

The Sound and the Fury (James Franco, 2014)

James Franco gets mocked for overreaching -- writing fiction, directing avant-garde films and multimedia art, taking graduate level courses at a variety of universities simultaneously -- and for what many see as an eccentric persona. So I don't want to come off as a mocker in my criticism of his film version of William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury. It's a failure for a variety of reasons, not least the extreme difficulty of translating into visual terms a novel that succeeds in the way its author uses language to convey the inner states of his characters. Franco makes the serious mistake of casting himself as the most interior and inarticulate of Faulkner's characters, the mentally handicapped Benjy Compson. Distractingly outfitted with oversize front teeth, Franco struggles to portray Benjy's torment at the loss of his beloved sister Caddy (Ahna O'Reilly), amid the declining fortunes of the Compson family. He can't dim the intelligence in his own eyes enough to suggest the blind struggle of memory and desire and frustration within the character. The screenplay by Matt Rager, who has also adapted Faulkner's As I Lay Dying (2013) and John Steinbeck's In Dubious Battle (2016) for Franco to direct, does a fairly good job of sticking to the narrative line of the novel: Benjy's loss, the suicide of his older brother Quentin (Jacob Loeb), the marriage that Caddy enters into because she is impregnated by Dalton Ames (Logan Marshall-Green), Caddy's sending her daughter, also named Quentin (Joey King), to live with the Compsons, and the rage of the youngest brother, Jason (Scott Haze), when the teenage Quentin runs away from home with the money he has hoarded after stealing it from the funds Caddy has sent for Quentin's support. Rager also draws heavily on the sententious speeches of the Compson children's ineffectual alcoholic father (Tim Blake Nelson), taken directly from the novel. The screenplay skimps on the key role played in the novel by the black servants, particularly that of Dilsey (Loretta Devine). Most of the performances are quite good, with the exception of Janet Jones Gretzky as the mother; she looks far too healthy, and never strikes the note of decayed gentility that the role demands. There are also some unnecessarily distracting cameos by Seth Rogen as a telegraph clerk and Danny McBride as the sheriff, bit parts that didn't need to be cast so prominently. As a whole, the film feels like the work of an amateur filmmaker with exceptional film industry connections, and that, I guess, is the very definition of overreaching.