Movie Review - World's Greatest Dad

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Bobcat Goldthwait, best known as the comedian with the grating voice from the Police Academy movies, gives us his third directorial effort with World’s Greatest Dad.  Goldthwait’s first effort was the cult classic Shakes The Clown which followed the exploits of a down-and-out alcoholic clown.  His second feature was called Stay and was based on a premise so repugnant that there is no way I can even hint at it without losing my job.  But, surprisingly, the film was actually a fairly moving story of forgiveness, trust and redemption.  Suffice to say, Goldthwait likes his comedy more than a bit dark.  But he also has a unique ability to find humor and pathos in the some of the more vile recesses of human nature.  His latest film, starring Robin Williams, continues that trend.

Williams plays Lance Clayton, a high school English teacher and father to Kyle (Daryl Sabara).  Kyle attends the same school at which Lance teaches and is a constant source of embarrassment for his father.  Kyle is essentially friendless and subject to non-stop ridicule at school…and rightly so.  He’s mean-spirited, homophobic, self-involved, hateful and sex-obsessed.  No, sex-obsessed is putting it too mildly.  He’s fixated on the darker avenues of depravity that only the internet can provide.  It’s safe to say that Kyle does not have one singular redeeming quality.  He is nauseating grotesquery of a teenage boy.  This kid makes Holden Caulfield look like Greg Brady.  What makes this so perplexing is that Lance is a model father.  He is truly making every effort to connect with his son while still respecting his privacy.  But all this does is to allow Kyle to manipulate and take advantage of his father at every turn.  Lance’s life takes an unexpected turn when he discovers his son dead; asphyxiated during…well, an “intimate moment”.  (Let’s just say that he was probably a fan of Michael Hutchence and David Carradine.)   Wanting to save his son’s dignity (not to mention his own), Lance stages the scene to look like a suicide.  Going so far as to compose a flowery, tormented suicide note bemoaning his friendlessness.

The students at school are decidedly unaffected by Kyle’s death.  He was entirely repulsive and, as such, goes completely unmissed.  Until, that is, someone discovers “Kyle’s” suicide note and posts it online.  Upon reading the gut-wrenching note (and later, Kyle’s Lance-penned journal), Kyle is transformed into a modern-day folk hero; a misunderstood misanthrope with a heart-of-gold.  His memory becomes a malleable metaphor; a mirror upon which people reflect their own needs.  The lonely bookworm, the alienated Goth girl, the repressed homosexual star-athlete – they all now see Kyle as a tortured soul and a kindred spirit.  As Kyle’s star (posthumously) rises, so too does Lance’s.  His once-empty poetry class is now overflowing with students desperate to bask in the maudlin glow of recreational mourning.  Lance, frustrated author, is taken with the attention his work is receiving but disturbed by everyone’s attempts to co-opt his son’s memory as he held no illusions about his son’s directionless depravity.

Williams is in rare form as Lance.  Absent are so many of his cloying, manic traits that he so often exhibits in his films.  Instead he gives us a quiet study of a man slowly realizing that being alone and being lonely isn’t always the same thing.  Sabara gives a brave performance as the despicable Kyle.  He resists the actorly urge to imbue the role with any degree of likeability.  The film hinges on the audience having nothing but contempt for the character.  He gives a pitch-perfect performance.  Had he played the part more aggressively, he’d have crossed over into caricature.  His foul nature would have felt cartoonish; more akin to Montgomery Burns.  Had his performance had any amount of gentleness to it, the audience would have clung to that small, redemptive ray of hope.

World’s Greatest Dad is fascinating rumination on the nature of celebrity and people’s tendency to canonize the recently deceased.  A phenomenon we recently witnessed with Michael Jackson.  While it is human nature (and proper etiquette) to not speak ill of the dead, it’s a proclivity that, extrapolated to its natural conclusion, can corrupt our concept of history.  But there’s a difference between discreetly holding one’s tongue and unjustifiably lavishing praise on the undeserving.  It’s a dark film that’s certainly not for everyone.  But if you like your comedy edgier than what Hollywood typically provides, it’s worth seeking out.

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being Heathers and 1 being Dead Man on Campus, World’s Greatest Dad gets an 8.

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