The Cook and Book Club is a small Australian based book club combining their love for reading and cooking. Declan, a member of the club, will be recapping his experience each month right here on The Nerd Daily!
BOOK | One person selects a book for everyone to read over the next month
COOK | The book selector hosts a dinner party with a themed meal related to the book
I took charge of the Cook & Book Club this month, so given my recent Tommy Wiseau fanboy phase I wanted to delve deeper into the abomination that is The Room – a 2003 drama film that was a trainwreck from start to finish. The Disaster Artist chronicles the strange friendship between director-actor-writer Tommy Wiseau and his co-star Greg Sestero, and reveals just how nightmarish it was to work on that film set.
Dinner
Tonight I dispensed with the formalities of entrée and dessert. After everyone saw what I would be serving up for the main course, I was sure they wouldn’t have the appetite for anything else anyway.
To quote Lisa from The Room, tonight’s meal was “Half Canadian bacon with pineapple, half artichoke with pesto, and light on the cheese”.
Understandably, no one wanted to be the first one to try it. But after taking the first bite and discovering my knack for making disgusting meals taste half-decent, I managed to convince the others to tuck in. Now that everyone’s expectations of the night had been sufficiently lowered, we launched into the discussion.
With the recent movie adaptation starring James Franco still fresh in our minds, we immediately drew comparisons between the film’s whimsical, childish portrayal of Wiseau and the book’s more tragic, obnoxious depiction. Not to say that Franco didn’t nail the impersonation, but the curtain obscuring Wiseau’s darker tendencies was not fully pulled back in the movie. In the novel however, Sestero goes to great lengths to pick apart Wiseau and figure out exactly what made him the way he is. This is not an easy feat, given how much personal information Wiseau refuses to divulge.
The little that Wiseau has disclosed though reveals some truly tough experiences, and it explains a lot about his personality now – his obsession with the American Dream, his paranoia, his loneliness. But then there are those mannerisms that are impossible to explain. Just tiny quirks that shouldn’t matter, but feel ever so slightly out of the ordinary. For example, in one section Sestero describes Wiseau’s strange habits while dining out:
“Whenever Tommy is in a restaurant, he always orders a glass of hot water. I’ve never seen a waiter or waitress do anything but balk at the order.”
And whenever Wiseau is questioned about his idiosyncrasies, he gets defensive and aggressive.
“Look, why you give me hard time? Do I speak Chinese? This is simple request, my God. Are you tipsy or something? And more bread with raisin stuff.”
As a result, the co-existence of Wiseau’s most comical qualities, unpleasant traits, and his tragic backstory create something of a paradox. We’re not sure if we should be laughing, sympathising, or baulking at his behaviour. It’s uncomfortable, but it also paints a more rounded picture of Wiseau than we have gotten in any other public portrayal of him.
The Disaster Artist is much more of a character study than a narrative, but over dinner Scott noted how much this was modified for the film adaptation. The novel’s structure alternates between the early days of Wiseau and Sestero’s friendship and their work together on The Room, but the movie takes a much more linear approach. It even wraps up the entire story with a moral at the end: that even if The Room isn’t taken seriously by audiences as a piece of art, it still has value in making people laugh.
The novel places less emphasis on this message, instead weaving it in more subtly throughout the story. Instead, Sestero’s decision to linger on Wiseau’s psyche and the way he influences the world around him feels more fitting for the book format.
Sestero aptly describes The Room as “a drama that is also a comedy that is also an existential cry for help that is finally a testament to human endurance”, and I couldn’t have put it better myself. There’s a reason The Room has become a demented kind of cultural icon all these years later, but that’s a whole other article. The story behind its creation is just as uncanny, and in The Disaster Artist Sestero does his best to lay out as much of the truth as he can. It’s a compelling, uncomfortable read, but it’s also a necessity for fans of The Room.
