John Smith
I was catching up with some of Robin Williams brilliant work (standup and movies) after his tragic demise.Robin Williams plays Lance Clayton, high school poetry teacher and single parent. Lance Clayton is a failed writer, having had several books rejected. His son Kyle performs poorly at school, is ill tempered and disobedient, with few friends. After his son's death caused by autoerotic asphyxiation, Lance makes the death look like suicide. When the school students interpret Kyle's fake suicide note as deeply intelligent, and become the late Kyle's new best friends, Lance exploits this by publishing Kyle's fake Journal. Finally Lance admits Kyle's true cause of death and that he wrote Kyle's Journal. The message of the film is that its better to be alone than to be with people who make you feel alone.World's Greatest Dad, is probably better titled World's Worst Dad. Neither parent or child have much empathy for each other. Both seemed to be 'losers'. The cause of Kyle's death seems implausible, given Kyle's likely novice experience. The film seems to be seeking attention through highlighting taboo subjects. The message of being alone and unliked, fails for me as the film does not offer solutions for better parenting and focuses for a time on youth suicide, which is not properly dealt with.The acting was OK, but I felt the messages in the film were off key and inappropriate. 5.5/10
Neddy Merrill
Borrowing liberally from "Heathers", this cynical dark comedy from Bobcat Goldthwait ends with the great, great line: "I used to think the worst thing in life was to end up all alone. It's not. The worst thing in life is ending up with people who make you feel all alone." Unfortunately you are going to have to work hard to get there. The movie treads the path worn by "Heathers" of various special interest groups at a high school using the supposed suicide of a student to their own ends ultimately fictionalizing and defying him in the process. One of the parties, his father played by the late (due to suicide) Robin Williams, capitalizes on the tragedy to get everything his wants. Mostly, the script lacks funny and has few of the whipsmart lines that made "Heathers" a classic. However, if approached as a dark drama, the movie does raise some very discuss- able philosophical questions. Chief among these concerns whether the titular father's action although wildly dishonest and driven by greed do make the best of a bad situation and ultimately rehabilitate the legacy of the scumbag son. Can you do the wrong thing for the wrong reasons and wind up with a right that justifies the inherently evil actions? Is it better to be popular as a fraud or alone but true to yourself? We're told the father's deception helped vast swaths of the school and the surrounding community - does this justify his actions. In short, not much funny but a fair amount of thinky.
thesar-2
Just 10 days shy of the 5-year anniversary of the limited release of World's Greatest Dad, Robin Williams' life ended eerily like his character's son did. This prompted my friend to watch this and request that I, too, see it and share my thoughts.I had never seen it, but wasn't opposed to seeing it – I do love Robin Williams all around and especially in his darker and deeper humor roles such as Insomnia and One Hour Photo. Boy, was I taken aback.Not by the subject matter or the potential idea placed in Williams' head, but because of how light they made of suicide, including unintentional suicide. I understand this is a dark comedy and certainly not meant as a laugh-out-loud riot, but it was actually painful how the "director/writer" (ha - Bobcat Goldthwait) all-but made fun of young kids who commit suicide.Backing up, the movie follows an unsuccessful writer/single father/teacher who's raising a definite problem child. Mean, cross, dumb, sexually frustrated and horribly homophobic this kid is, but the dad, Lance (Williams) isn't doing much to stop it. His own depression and self-pity is clearly sending his son on the wrong path. No real spoiler – it is the film's premise, one night the kid, Kyle, lost the battle on his (at least) second attempt at erotic asphyxiation and in probably the only selfless motion from the Lance, he makes it look like just a hanging in the closet to save his son some embarrassment. He even writes a suicide note using his own writing techniques.Sadly – well, less sadly than the loss of a son, things spiral out of control as the deceased brat becomes a hero throughout the school both he attended and Lance worked. Daddy now has to struggle with both the lies upon lies and the fact he's finally be recognized for his writing capability, albeit indirectly.The movie's obviously going somewhere and you know where. At least you know until the final WTF finale in which you get to see a fully nude, aging Williams skinny dip. I get why they did it, but it didn't help my disgust throughout the entire film where they basically make suicide a kind of a joke.The movie is riddled with very bad people and in fact, hardly contains a single soul you can attach yourself to. You have the brat of Kyle, the selfish father, the player teacher, the Sauvé, but deceitful other teacher, the blind principal, the abused and likes it only friend and the power hungry psychologist. So, even though this is that kind of movie that is not peppy, nor motivating, it is sadly disrespectable to make comedic light of kids killing themselves.Unless…I completely misinterpreted this movie and it's literally trying to make the darkest and most evil movie. Actually, I think I'm giving them too much credit. * * *Final thoughts: I miss Robin Williams. The day he passed, I was driving home from work and heard the news on our talk radio station; only, I came into the middle of the "breaking news" segment. For the longest of time, they spoke of someone huge who passed, but wouldn't say his name. Finally, they mentioned "…And he loved San Francisco…" and immediately, I thought: "Oh, my God. Robin Williams is dead."Finally, they confirmed it, and I took the rest of the night in deep sadness as if I'd lost a friend. I didn't want to watch a movie of his, because I was too shaken up from the loss of this absolute genius. Eventually, I broke down and put in Aladdin, a movie I hadn't seen in a least a decade. I sang and cried through that.Even here, in World's Greatest Dad, he was great. It's just too bad that the movie wasn't and hopefully this didn't officially make him think about suicide until it got too hard half a decade later.
