Written by Linda
September 13, 2009
When Robin Williams' son dies of a freak, er, self-inflicted accident, it may be just the break he needs to become a successful writer.
Robin Williams plays Lance, a high school poetry teacher who is also a miserably failed writer. He seethes with jealousy as his young, handsome co-worker gets an article published in the New Yorker on his first try and their co-workers swoon over the other guy's success. In the meantime, single dad Lance deals with his wretchedly horrible teenage son Kyle (Daryl Sabara, who has an icky, sweaty sheen at all times), foul-mouthed, obnoxious and mean kid, whose main hobby is masturbating.
One evening, Lance comes home to find every parent's worst nightmare: His son is dead. But, being Kyle, the kid accidentally died from the kind of embarrassing stunt of auto-erotic asphyxiation. Lance knows that people can't find out the specific cause of Kyle's death, so before even calling 911, he types up a moving suicide note for his kid and props Kyle in the closet, hanging-style. Things are grim indeed.
But, this horrible turn of events turns out to be, twistedly, just what Lance needed to turn his life around. Turns out that Kyle's suicide note gets published in the school paper, making Kyle not only a super-popular dead kid with his peers that hated him, but Lance suddenly becomes the most popular teacher for being the dad of such a sensitive kid. Other teachers are paying attention to him, and being the dad of a suicide suddenly makes Lance sexy again to his cute co-worker love interest. Soon, of course, there is interest in a book and talk shows. But you know this charade of total, grotesque exploitation will eventually blow up on itself...
While watching World's Greatest Dad, I couldn't help but think that Heathers had a similar idea, but did it better ("Teen Suicide! Don't Do It!"). This is a very dark comedy, and is just one step away from tragedy (the moment where Williams finds his son is really hard to watch... kudos to Williams). Sabara does a great job being completely loathsome (there are no redeeming soft-focus qualities in this horrible kid). But that thin line is actually kind of wobbly, and the film couldn't seem to get its footing whether it wanted to be a broad black comedy, or a sad commentary on a lonely, desperate dad feeding off the pity of others. This, overall, made the pace kind of clunky. Clocking in at under 90 minutes, World's Greatest Dad just seemed too long. There's a good movie in there, I'm sure, but I just didn't get into it.
