Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
In the wake of allegations that have surfaced since Harvey Weinstein fell from grace last October, we’ve been forced to reassess many of the things we consume as viewers. House of Cards is now difficult to stomach. Louie is no longer on the top of our “best of” lists. Transparent doesn’t carry the same weight it once did. One of the most fascinating cases of this is perhaps that of The Disaster Artist, a film that was generally well-received by critics and fans, and even generated its fair amount of awards buzz – but all of that quickly dissolved after a series of allegations of sexual misconduct against director-star James Franco surfaced.
Fresh off an exciting, impactful Golden Globes ceremony (to which he wore a Time’s Up pin), Franco’s once-promising path to the Oscars disintegrated almost immediately, resulting in only a lone nomination for The Disaster Artist‘s adapted screenplay. If that wasn’t enough, the screenplay is currently under scrutiny, too; a former student of Franco’s has filed a lawsuit claiming he was stripped of a writing credit on the script after putting some 60 hours of work into it. With The Disaster Artist now streaming on Amazon Prime Video, it’s hard not to wonder how we’ll discuss the film going forward – and if any film has ever fallen from grace so quickly.
One of the most disappointing things about films and television shows being snubbed due to the actions of one person is just that – that one person can take everyone else down with them. It takes hundreds of people to make these works come to life, and The Disaster Artist is no exception. This loving, surprisingly earnest tribute to one of the worst movies ever made has a lot of standout moments – and many of them don’t involve Franco’s Tommy Wiseau. His brother Dave turns in a stellar performance as Wiseau’s best friend Greg Sestero, and the star-studded ensemble cast, including Seth Rogen, Alison Brie, Zac Efron, and a slew of others, all do wonderful things on screen. But it’s hard not to watch the film and think about the damage Franco has done, and whether or not its script even belongs to those credited. It’s murky, complex territory, and it’s something that we’ve been forced to begin navigating with very few notions of where to even begin.
When it comes to these works, works perhaps spoiled by an individual at their center, Matt Zoller Seitz puts it better than most of us ever will:
“We can still talk about them, study them, write about them, contextualize them. But the emotional connection has been severed. The work becomes archival. It loses its present-tense potency, something that significant or great works have always had the privilege of claiming in the past.
That’s all on the predators. It’s not on you. None of us asked for this.”
None of us asked for the inherently charming The Disaster Artist to make us think about sexual harassment and the abuse of power in Hollywood, but thanks to the alleged actions of one person, that’s the hand we’ve been dealt. You may very well still enjoy this fun romp, a sincere exploration of what it means to pursue your dreams against every odd. But knowing that James Franco may have taken advantage of others’ dreams makes this disaster a little harder to delight in.
