Dark comedy, done properly, requires a scabrous view of human nature and a mordant affection for human fallibility. Bobcat Goldthwait is simply too nice for the job. The stand-up comedian-turned-filmmaker’s latest, World’s Greatest Dad, has a softness at its center that leaves us with an unsatisfied appetite for blood.
Perhaps I should say “me” rather than “us.” It’s almost certain that I’m less enlightened than you, and more unfeeling. Surely you’ve never sat in a theater and agitatedly muttered to yourself in the dark, “Kill that character already! Quit stalling! We know he’s going to die. Get on with it, and get on with the story!” Oh, you have? Then you’ll understand that when Goldthwait finally pulls the plug, so to speak, in World’s Greatest Dad, the movie kicks into another gear.
Dad is a mildly twisted spin on the clichéd high school movie where a decent but nerdy kid stands and delivers, or matures through trial by bully, and learns to be his or her own person. In this case, the dweeb is an adult, a teacher, who achieves his freedom by finally destroying his unfulfilled and unfulfilling urge to win the respect and affection of others.
Robin Williams plays a single father with an insufferable teenage son. Both go to the same high school, where Lance teaches poetry (his only class, apparently and improbably) and the loutish, cloddish Kyle (played by Daryl Sabara) is content to alienate everyone except a lone bewildered friend. Lance is working on his fifth unpublished novel, with the only bright spot in his life a secret, mostly sexual (her choice, as he’d prefer something deeper) relationship with a younger, fake-bubbly teacher (Alexie Gilmore, channeling Teri Garr circa 1983).
Lance lives a life of endless put downs and quiet desperation, which means Williams walks through the movie in pinched, hangdog mode. The character is neither a rebel nor a non-conformist, but neither is he fully numbed to the dreadful hollowness of his life. When a door opens for him, he still has enough imagination to stick his foot in the opening.