World's Greatest Dad Review

Ah, technology.  World's Greatest Dad is a small film I wouldn't have gotten to see a few years ago until it hit the stores on DVD/Blu-Ray because it is only in limited release.  The closest city having a theater showing it is Atlanta.  As much as I love movies 110 miles is what we call "a fur piece" to go.  Fortunately for me,  Comcast cable (and that's not a plug, just a fact) now features, on its On Demand channel some smaller, limited release movies currently in theaters.  Cool.   For $6.99, which is less than it costs to go to the movies, I was able to sit in my living room an watch a current release in HD.

Imagine you are a single father to a 17 year old kid even a mother couldn't love.  As World's Greatest Dad opens we learn that Lance Clayton (Robin Williams) is a forever frustrated writer, with several novels and a drawer full of rejection letters to accompany them.  And like every writer I know, for him the creativity itself is not fulfillment.  He wants readers.  Instead he has a teenage son, Kyle (Daryl Sabara) who is one of the most miserable excuses for a human being I've ever witnessed, especially for a teenager.  Deeply cynical at a young age, Kyle is misanthropic and mean-spirited.  Dude even claims to hate all music.  He consistently makes his dad's life hell and has but one friend in the whole world.  And that's his good side.  Then there's Lance's girlfriend, the much younger, much cuter art teacher, Claire (Alexie Gilmore).

It's not really clear why Clair likes Lance so much because she's so perky and free-spirited while Mr. Clayton so something of a bore.  Listening to Lance talk is like listening to a Steven Wright monologue without the funny.  But she dotes on him, that is when she's not breaking dates and otherwise acting like a two-timer.  She's also known at school as the resident TILF.  You figure that one out.

Oh, and let's not forget Lance also has his high school poetry class, the one the principal threatens to cancel next semester if enrollment doesn't improve. This is most definitely not The Dead Poet's Society.  These kids would make dead poets wish they could kill themselves again.  One student even rips off a Queen song and tries to recite it in class as his work.  Clayton's teaching style isn't helpful, either.  He sits at his desk and monotones.

Kyle is immensely disliked by pretty much all of the students, except for his friend Andrew (Evan Martin) and the faculty.  He likes to talk about things you'd be shocked to find out your 17-year old kid even knew about and he talks about them in public.  It's not hard to see how he got that way, because the movie title is a misnomer.  Lance is anything but the World's Greatest Dad and is, in fact, a weak father, allowing is son to bully him around and enforcing little discipline.  This is probably because Clayton sees himself as a failure since he's never been published, and this is, after all, his life's dream.

But, without giving too much a way, a sudden tragedy about 30 minutes in changes everything, including the direction of the film and Lance's life.  It is here the title of the film's production company, Darko Entertainment, becomes fitting.

THE BOTTOM LINE

Writer/director Bobcat Goldthwait has fashioned a very dark comedy  that also serves as excellent social commentary on the shallowness of high schoolers AND their teachers as well as  proof of the old adage, "Be careful what you wish for".  Goldthwait proves himself insightful and darkly funny, well twisted, as he examines people's motives and their tendency to raise up undeserving celebrities in their ignorance.  The comedy, especially in the second half of the movie is spot on satire and often uncomfortable to the point of cringing while laughing.

Robin Williams pulls off the performance of  his life as a beaten down single father struggling with an A-hole for kid and a girlfriend who might not really mean it.  His reaction to the tragedy is wholly believable and surprising at the same time.  And we never, ever see the over-the-top Robin Williams of say, Patch Adams.  Instead, his subdued acting is some of the best of his long career.

And Sabara is a long way from the Spy Kids movies.  He stretches himself here, wearing the skin of a deeply disturbed young man, and convincingly. 

Goldthwait's World's Greatest Dad is dark, funny, often disturbing and offers keen insight to dealing with loss and loneliness and the lengths people are willing to go to free themselves from those chains.   This film won't appeal to everyone, but it has lessons for us all.  GRADE: B+