If there was an Oscar category for Best Dark Comedy, WORLD’S GREATEST DAD would be the winner. Excellent work from the twisted brilliant writer/director Bobcat Goldthwait who… teaches us how to make use of a tragedy for our own benefit, every single possible messed-up scenario is visited. This movie is funny, sad, depressing and enlightening all at once. Robin Williams is not just a comic genius, he is a magnificent, unstoppable talent. As Lance Clayton, Williams is perfect!
Robin Williams stars as Lance Clayton, a man who has learned to settle. He dreamed of being a rich and famous writer, but has only managed to make it as a high school poetry teacher. His only son Kyle (Daryl Sabara) is an insufferable jackass who won’t give his father the time of day. He is dating Claire (Alexie Gilmore), the school’s adorable art teacher, but she doesn’t want to get serious — or even acknowledge publicly that they are dating.
Then, in the wake of a freak accident, Lance suffers the worst tragedy and greatest opportunity of his life. He is suddenly faced with the possibility of all the fame, fortune and popularity he ever dreamed of, if he can only live with the knowledge of how he got there.
Dark comedy usually means comedy that revolves around gloomy, morbid elements and I believe WORLD’S GREATEST DAD is an epitome of exactly that. Imagine yourself always getting beat down, doors of opportunity keeps hitting you in the face, no matter how hard you’ve tried again and again, and all of a sudden a certain given situation at hand appears, that one small crack in the window that gives you a chance to get everything you ever desire at the cost of your conscience? This movie makes fun of that and all the while it does a good job of leaving you with that guilty feeling. Writer/director Bobcat Goldthwait has a great imagination, he can make Williams’ character Lance Clayton from a mere blip on the radar into the center of attention.
Another reason why I find this movie fascinating is the the consistency of the story. The first half it keeps pounding Clayton with all kinds of misery and humiliation and self-esteem agony mostly generated by his A-hole son, Kyle… and the last half, it’s as if the direction gets changed 180 degrees, the story starts pounding Clayton with all kinds of praises and compliments and recognition that come in all shapes and sizes. The development from one to the other is fairly fast and every minute keeps you entertained. The transitional moment, however, is a bit heartbreaking, it’s presented in a scene where Robin Williams, the great actor that he is, laments over an irreparable loss.
The comedy is evil funny, the perverted things that Kyle says are more rude and way more hysterical than any raunchy stuff that Will Ferrell could come up with. Goldthwait’s sense of humor is without mercy. Even the socially awkward love triangle will get you laughing. The ball of lies that gets bigger and bigger as Clayton keeps milking the juice of his tragedy is disturbingly amusing and addictive.
Robin Williams is one of the finest actors of our generation, that man gives his best for this little movie. It never ceases to amaze me the wide range of ability that Williams is able to give us. You feel the discontent in his eyes, and you can’t resist his comedic timing, and even when he’s in excruciating grief, he seems to be able to get the world to vanish, to leave him sobbing. As Lance Clayton, he knows that he thought he knew loneliness, he thought success and fame would cure such loneliness but it doesn’t hit hard until he realizes that he misses the one that annoys him the most. Something good does come out of this eventually but not in a way that Clayton had in mind, turns out the people who actually care about him and his son were right next door and in front him all along.
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