History YMMV / TheDisasterArtist

* UnintentionallySympathetic: Tommy, strangely enough. Arguably, the book's depiction of him CrossesTheLineTwice and makes the reader empathize with how much of HisOwnWorstEnemy he is, desperate for friends but so mentally imbalanced and impossible to deal with that nobody would give him the chance (if anything, it's the only thing relatable about him). Even Greg doesn't know why he stays friends with Tommy despite the hell he puts him through. He's also gone on record by saying he believes his friendship with Tommy was probably the only human experience Tommy has had ''ever.'' It doesn't excuse how he treated his cast, but it does make you feel at least a bit sorry for the guy.

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: The movie has an excellent collection of classic pop songs used as cues for key scenes, such as "Rhythm Of The Night" by Corona for when Tommy is happily dancing at the bar and Music/FaithNoMore's "Epic" during the slo-mo shot of Greg and Tommy showing up on-set for the first day.

** Sandy points out during the "Hi doggy" scene that there's no way anyone could mistake Tommy for somebody else. [[spoiler: Post-credits, we see him encounter the real Tommy Wiseau.]]

* RetroactiveRecognition: The film parodies the audience's recognition of Creator/BryanCranston, who's best known to contemporary audiences for his portrayal of Walter White on ''Series/BreakingBad''. However, because the film is set before ''Breaking Bad'' premiered, Greg instead recognizes Cranston from ''Series/MalcolmInTheMiddle''.

* AccidentalAesop: While your chasing dream may not turn out exactly the way you want it to go, you can still make something positive out of what you actually get from it. Tommy's film may not have been loved as a serious dramatic film but it did find a differnt type of love from a audience that embraced it as a unintentional comedy.

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Sorry Tommy, but a tragic backstory doesn't mean you get to abuse the cast and crew of your movie and be a toxic friend to Greg. Arguably, the book's depiction of him CrossesTheLineTwice and makes the reader empathize with how much of HisOwnWorstEnemy he is, desperate for friends but so mentally imbalanced and impossible to deal with that nobody would give him the chance (if anything, it's the only thing relatable about him). Even Greg doesn't know why he stays friends with Tommy despite the hell he puts him through.

* TheyChangedItNowItSucks: Quite a few people have criticized the movie for glossing over some of Tommy's worse moments and making him come off as more sympathetic, when the book goes out of its way to describe how big of a {{jerkass}} he was.

* ClicheStorm: Some of the things that were changed from the book and invented for the movie are pretty cliche. For example, in the movie, Tommy is inspired to do ''Film/TheRoom'' after an agent not only turns him down but literally says "you'll never work in this town". So is Creator/GregSestero going from a struggling actor who's been in a couple of things to a struggling actor who has never booked a job in his life.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodCharacter: The cast of ''Film/TheRoom'' are given little screen time.

* WTHCastingAgency:
** In the film version, Greg Sestero is played by James Franco's brother Dave Franco, while James plays Tommy Wiseau. It was pointed out in the book that Tommy and Greg have no family resemblance whatsoever. There's also the [[HoYay homoerotic undertones]] to their friendship, which of course could be treated as IncestuousCasting in this case (James himself viewed the relationship as brotherly and urged Dave to take the role because of it). Some of these complaints subsided when the elder Franco's physical transformation into Wiseau was revealed (resulting in him spending hours in the makeup chair to get all the prosthetics) leading to him hardly resembling his brother.
** The film has a large number of big name actors in extremely small roles. While it's not like they do a bad job, seeing so many A-listers as little more than extras proves to be rather distracting.

** In the film version, Greg Sestero is played by James Franco's brother Dave Franco, while James plays Tommy Wiseau. It was pointed out in the book that Tommy and Greg have no family resemblance whatsoever. There's also the [[HoYay homoerotic undertones]] to their friendship, which of course could be treated as IncestuousCasting in this case (James himself viewed the relationship as brotherly and urged Dave to take the role because of it). Some of these complaints subsided when Franco's physical transformation into Wiseau was revealed (resulting in him spending hours in the makeup chair to get all the prosthetics) leading to him hardly resembling his brother.

* HarsherInHindsight: The sexual misconduct allegations against Creator/JamesFranco makes Tommy's treatment of Julliette harder to watch. The rest of the crew, ''especially'' Greg (played by Creator/DaveFranco) pulling Tommy aside and insisting he ''can't'' treat people that way, telling Julliette to tell him if she feels uncomfortable, and the way she reacts during the premier where its clear she feels a great deal of shame for the sex scene. Making matters worse, during her audition Julliette outright asks if this is a real movie of they're just taking advantage of her, which is ''exactly'' what Franco's former students have accused him of doing.
* SugarWiki/HeReallyCanAct: Some viewers find [[spoiler: the real Creator/TommyWiseau's cameo]] in TheStinger to be an unironically good performance, effectively portraying a guy trying to connect with Wiseau but being rebuffed and effectively delivering his lines [[spoiler: without his bizarre ColdHam style.]]

** Sandy points out during the "Hi Doggy" scene that there's no way anyone could mistake Tommy for somebody else. [[spoiler: Post-credits, We see him encounter the real Tommy Wiseau.]]
** Tommy and Greg fall out when Tommy refuses to let Greg shave his beard for another role. Not long after the film's release, Creator/HenryCavill experienced a similar predicament when reshoots for ''Film/JusticeLeague2017'' clashed with his work on ''Film/MissionImpossibleFallout'' [[note]]Much like Greg, Cavill had grown thick facial hair for ''Fallout'' and was contractually obligated by Paramount to not shave it when filming the ''Justice League'' reshoots, forcing the workers on the latter film to use CGI to remove the mustache in the reshoots[[/note]].

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: The real-life story of Greg's RageBreakingPoint, where he imagined that he was screaming "Why are you doing this to me?" at Tommy when he had to read the line "Leave your stupid comments in your pocket!", is arguably a more effective and interesting story than the scuffle he and Tommy have in the park which was invented for the movie adaptation.

* UncannyValley: [[http://i.imgur.com/ThEz530.jpg This teaser poster]] for the film, which looks eerily identical to [[http://www.theroommovie.com/roompics/posterb.jpg the actual film's poster]], right down to its title.

* AwardSnub: Sexual misconduct allegations against Creator/JamesFranco emerged after he had won a UsefulNotes/GoldenGlobe for his performance. Subsequently, he was not included in the Best Actor UsefulNotes/AcademyAward Nominations [when he'd previously been considered all but a shoe-in] and several awards shows failed to give him nominations or wins as a result of his actions.

* AwardSnub: Sexual misconduct allegations against Creator/JamesFranco emerged after he had won a Golden Globe for his performance. Subsequently, he was not included in the Best Actor Oscar Nominations [when he'd previously been considered all but a shoe-in] and several awards shows failed to give him nominations or wins as a result of his actions.
* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: The movie has an excellent collection of classic pop songs used as cues for key scenes, such as "Rhythm Of The Night" by Corona for when Tommy is happily dancing at the bar and Faith No More's "Epic" during the slo-mo shot of Greg and Tommy showing up on-set for the first day.

* RetroactiveRecognition:
** The film parodies the audience's recognition of Creator/BryanCranston, who's best known to contemporary audiences for his portrayal of Walter White on ''Series/BreakingBad''. Because the film is set before ''Breaking Bad'' premiered, however, Greg instead recognizes Cranston from ''Series/MalcolmInTheMiddle''.
** Creator/RandallPark is Greg's acting classmate Rob.

* WhatAnIdiot: As the book shows, Tommy Wiseau defies common sense. Listing all of his boneheaded decisions would require typing out the entire book, so here are a few highlights of [[ArtisticLicenseFilmProduction his actions]]:
** ''Purchasing'', instead of ''renting'' both an HD camera and a 35mm film camera. This is something that even multi-billion dollar studios never do, [[TechnologyMarchesOn as filmmaking technology is always evolving and what is considered cutting edge now will be obsolete in a year]].
** Using the HD camera and film camera ''simultaneously''. Both cameras required entire crews to operate and their own lighting patterns. As such, none of the HD camera footage was ever used in the final cut.
** Kyle Vogt (Peter) was only able to commit a limited amount of time to ''Film/TheRoom'', as he was working on another project. The best thing to do when an actor can only be involved for a limited portion of the shoot is to give all of their scenes priority and film them first. However, despite repeatedly reminding Wiseau that he had other work, by Vogt's last day, they had not filmed his scenes at the party. Rather than completing as much as they could of Peter being at the party, Wiseau insisted on the now-infamous "football in tuxes" scene. It makes Peter's last line "That's it, I'm done." even funnier.
** On a less funny note, Tommy's refusal to give the crew water or breaks on set. With so much potentially dangerous equipment around, it's important to make sure your cast and crew don't pass out from dehydration or exhaustion.
** At the end of the book, Tommy hoped to see his film on network TV soon afterwards, having Greg dub his dialogue… even though a bigger roadblock would be the film's gratuitous sex scenes rather than Mark saying "bitch." Indeed, when aired on Creator/AdultSwim, the screen is often obscured entirely by a black box.

* DiscreditedMeme: The book quashed the "Wiseau hired an actual drug dealer to play Chris-R" conspiracy theory by revealing Dan Janjigian was just an ordinary guy with no acting experience that so happened to take his craft very seriously. Which is still an impressive feat.