Written & Directed By: Bobcat Goldthwait
Grade: A
World’s Greatest Dad achieves a number of great accomplishments, but one of the most notable is it shows Robin Williams at his best. Williams’ performance combines his understanding and conviction and escalates an authentic humor that surpasses his earlier work. World’s Greatest Dad is a dark comedy done right. It’s a fine line, but the film really tackles the serious, dramatic troubles as well as hits on fresh, witty comedy that keeps you laughing from beginning to end.
Lance Clayton (Williams) is a determined, but so far failed writer. He has written four books before, none of which anyone would publish. Lance is just beginning on his fifth and promises himself that if this one doesn’t work out that he will finally set his pen down. He’s a poetry teacher at the school that his obnoxious and distant, 15-year old son, Kyle (Sabara), attends. Only a few students attend his poetry class since the majority prefer to take the young and hip Mike Lane’s (Simmons) creative writing class. Lance is in danger of losing his class if he can’t get more students interested. Mike doesn’t only strike a professional threat to him, but a personal one as well. Lance has been seeing the cute, art teacher, Claire (Gilmore), but only in secret as she doesn’t want to be exclusive or let others know they have a relationship at all. When Mike gets an article published in The New Yorker, Claire’s eyes soon turn to him as they seem to close on Lance.
When Kyle gets in to a fight at school, Lance has to beg the principal not to send him away to another school for mentally challenged students. Lance tries to get his son to take his school work more seriously and spend more time with him. The main problem is Kyle seems to hate everything; even music and movies. The only thing he shows any interest at all is girls, sex, and porn. Lance finds that he not only doesn’t have much in common with his son but with Claire either. One night he goes out on his porch, smoking pot, which catches the attention of his neighbor. It turns out they have a common love of the earlier zombie films and that she has read all of his books he has thrown out. She praises his work and gives him the courage to keep on writing. When a freak accident shatters the entire school’s world, Lance finds inspiration in a very strange place. He can’t claim the work he is doing, although it is affecting so many people around him. Lance is finally so close to getting his work published, reaching an audience that is completely touched by what they read. The only problem is it’s a mere creation; artificial memories to the masses who never cared while this beloved departed soul was around them.
As I said, Robin Williams gives one of his best performances. He is very natural and he really puts so much of himself in to his character that we feel immensely for him. His character’s actions are questionable at the least, but we understand them void of much if any judgment. The mix of comedy and deep dramatic problems Lance has to face was good for Williams at this point in his career. The comedy is very authentic and rich and the drama aspect isn’t overplayed, but it is still acknowledged and dealt with. Daryl Sabara also did an excellent job. Yes, that’s the kid from Spy Kids and he has come a long way in the past few years. He nails a pretty unlikable character. Kyle is rude, shallow, and is overly judgmental towards everything and everyone. Sabara adds a lot of charisma and hits his comedic marks wonderfully. Even if you don’t like his character as a person, you enjoy his screen time because things are always interesting and entertaining when he’s around.
Evan Martin was another stand out as Andrew, Kyle’s best and only friend. He’s slightly awkward, but very kind and intelligent. He seems to be the smartest one in the town when everyone else is so easily fooled. As Andrew doesn’t have the best home life, Lance becomes like a second father to him. Henry Simmons also did very well as Mike, the cool and threatening teacher. Simmons has a certain suaveness and charm to him that makes it easy to understand why others like him. There are some small moments that really make his character all the better. It’s really the awkward moments where his sense of humor clearly doesn’t match with those around him that make things much funnier.
World’s Greatest Dad tells a great story about a man who is quite lost and doesn’t really have control or a good grasp on anything in his life. Even though it wasn’t his original intention, it seems that everyone around him is begging to give all of this reasoning and depth to something that is void of these things. As he aspires to create something people care about and his audience is right in front of him, Lance turns the fiction in his own mind and presents it as a reality. The theme presented on how people seem to care so much about someone who they only barely acknowledged their presence when they were alive is strong. It’s funny how someone’s life can just be an annoyance to so many and then suddenly when that person is no longer there they are suddenly inspiring and beloved by all. In World’s Greatest Dad that point is exaggerated a little within the circumstances, but it makes a point about the power of depth and people craving for it to mean something so badly.
There are some pretty dark events that take place that never really go away yet I was laughing continuously through the film. The laughs were very genuine. They were not forced or just for the sake of being present. The events are shocking and hard to believe at times, but the laughs don’t resort to shock factor. The tragedy is respected and woven in to a comedic spin on things. The two are blended together far better than you expect them to. The only thing that seemed unsettled was when Mike seemed suspicious of Lance without developing this to see what he found out. Perhaps this was just to give us a hint that Lance couldn’t pull off his charade forever. It is such a small thing, but it probably would have been better if it was either gone in to further or taken out. Overall, the characters are incredibly unique, the comedy is rich, pointing out flaws in the human condition, and the story is extremely well crafted. World’s Greatest Dad is hands down one of the best films of the year.
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It's such a good movie, great review!