When we first meet Lance Clayton, a sad sack English teacher played by Robin William’s, you can just imagine him watching his DEAD POETS SOCIETY doppelganger with tears strolling down his cheeks. Clayton’s desire to seize the day is falling away with every rejected novel and his girlfriend’s shameless flirtation with a colleague.
Clayton’s son Kyle, an abhorrent, perspiring mass of adolescence is played spectacularly by SPY KID’S Daryl Sabara. At first, you half expect Daryl to throw on a twee Hollywood smile but his sulky body language and crass dialogue transforms him into the sex-obsessed Kyle. Between porn surfing and dubbing everyone and everything ‘gay, gay, gay’, Kyle does little to win the audiences hearts. Sitting in the fatherly stance on the edge of his son’s bed, Clayton asks, “What do you like to do son, you must like to do something?” to which Kyle replies-“I like to look at vaginas”. The school principle threatens to pack Kyle off to ‘special school’ while Clayton desperately clings onto his humour-filled style of parenting.
From the offset, it is clear that this is no simple ‘personal growth’ story. The darkness is palpable and you cannot help but feel some awful happening is just a scene away. Sadly, you would be right. When dabbling (as you do…) in autoerotic asphyxiation with a woolen scarf, Kyle accidentally strangles himself. In a bid to preserve his sons already fledgling dignity, Clayton scribes an eloquent suicide note and claims his son took his own life.
From this incident, Worlds Greatest Dad takes a complex turn. Kyle’s classmates print the suicide note in the school paper, reinventing him as an unsung hero. Here, director Bobcat Goldthwait allows a clever nod to the modern glorification of teen suicide. Suddenly Kyle’s photograph is a fashion accessory and ex-bullies are carving a blood stained ‘KYLE’ into their forearms with a compass.
The blend of incongruous emotion and genuine heartbreak makes you feel almost hormonal. You laugh can’t help laugh as Clayton weeps in front of a newsstand of hardcore porn mags that remind him of Kyle. Still, there are huge pangs of sadness as he breaks down in the school corridor and is swarmed by the embraces of his students.
As Clayton becomes more enthralled by the Kyle’s celebrity, it all becomes so nonsensical, yet it makes perfect sense. Despite Williams letting the classic ‘mug’ break through in a few scenes, his perfect performance makes it impossible not to invest in Clayton’s character.
This film is so much more than the dark side of the DEAD POETS SOCIETY. It cannot be missed. If anything, go and get a glimmer of the Williams goods as he dives into the high school pool-completely starkers.
