World's Greatest Dad (2009)
Hmmm, I'm getting a bit fed up of these American "dramadies" i.e. comedies that aren't funny. The big let-down recently was "Win Win" which seemed to be trying and failing to do Coen Brothers humour. Now, I know a lot of people LOVED "50/50", but personally I felt that Seth Rogen just felt out of place and actually reckon the funniest parts were Joseph Gordon-Levitt interacting with Anjelica Huston (playing his mother). In fact, Joseph Gordon-Levitt's comic ability is particularly clear in "Hesher" which had me in hysterics at times and seemed to be the only one of these sorts of films that really knew what it was doing. The character of Hesher was entirely out of place in the cliched indie movie he was inhabiting and the contrast produced the humour. ("Hey look, here's this precocious kid with a neglectful father and a terminally ill grandmother who can't do much about it and is clearly going to die, leaving them all questioning what they are doing with their lives and thinking back over her words of wisdom. And um- here's this larger-than-life arsehole stoner metaller who likes to burn stuff and is going to live with them. Wait, what?") In "Win Win" and "50/50" I found that the expectation of humour felt tacked on to me. In fact I didn't even realise "Win Win" was a comedy until after I finished watching it and looked at the forums on IMDB.
Mainly an indie movie, but with some humour thrown in. I actually reckon the guy on the right is the funny one. The guy on the left just feels like he's doing the "isn't this funny" expressions. Seriously puts me off.
So "World's Greatest Dad" is claimed to be a black comedy. The premise is that Robin Williams has an obnoxious son who hates everything, is pretty much useless at everything and is obsessed with weird porn. His son inexplicably has one friend. Robin Williams is a failed writer and when his son ends up accidentally killing himself through auto-erotic asphyxiation, Robin Williams decides pretend it was a suicide and fakes his son's suicide note. Suddenly people are really interested in his dead son's writing, so Robin Williams sees an opening to get recognition for his writing, even if everyone thinks his son wrote it.
The thing is, in a good black comedy, the sickness feeds into the humour. Here that just doesn't happen. In some sections the film is more comic while in other sections the film is more depressing and these two aspects never get the chance to collide to produce actual black humour. The actual humour is pretty on-the-nose and lacking in subtlety. If you take some recent black comedies like "A Serious Man", "Submarine" or even something like "Fight Club", you can see how the humour relies on you fully embracing the darkness of the film. In "World's Greatest Dad" the humour seems to be a distraction from the darkness. The film is just too indie and bittersweet and it even seems pretty clear that the director has chosen some of his favourite indie tunes for the soundtrack. It's difficult to get into the appropriately cynical mood with Inara George's "Genius" popping along. Then again, the mood in "A Serious Man" didn't seem to be ruined by Jefferson Airplane.
But there's other reasons not to like this movie too. Robin Williams seems to be paired up with Alexie Gilmore who is 25 years younger than him and it REAAALLY shows. Now yes, I know that some women find maturity attractive, but Robin Williams doesn't display maturity in this role anyway. The film genuinely seems to portray this as a perfectly natural pairing. The only thing that seems to be seen as an obstacle to Robin Williams' relationship is his confidence and not the fact that in another movie Alexie Gilmore might convince us that she hadn't yet finished university while Robin Williams could convincingly play her grandfather with no extra make-up required for either of them. It's like the filmmakers were whispering behind closed doors "for christ's sake, don't anyone remind Robin Williams that he's getting old!"
And of course, in ridiculous indie movie tradition (mild spoilers here if anyone cares), there's a scene where the main character liberates himself by taking off all his clothes and running through the corridors in just his underpants. Does it make a lick of sense? No.
If you're lucky, this was one of the images that failed to display when I posted this...
The one person who I think deserves some real credit here is Daryl Sabara who was originally one of Robert Rodriguez "Spy Kids". In spite of the fact that he's playing a ridiculously over-the-top obnoxious character he's probably the only person who feels genuine. He's not really terribly funny, but then again neither is anyone else in this film. However, his portrayal of an unrelentingly awful person is perfect and he does get the opportunity to show a fair bit of nuance in his performance before his inevitable demise.
If you want a depressing film with little in the way of humour and an anti-climactic ending, watch this. Otherwise steer clear.
E+