American Cinema: World's Greatest Dad (2010)

This is a story of a man whose life is coming apart at the seams.  He has a lovely girlfriend who is ashamed to be seen with him and seems to be drifting off into the arms of another man.  He teaches an elective class in poetry writing (shades of Dead Poet's Society) which his high school principal warns is in danger of being dropped owing to its lack of popularity and he is a failed writer who seems to get nothing but rejection notices.  And if that is not enough his teenage son, Kyle, is ashamed of him, hates him, is on academic probation and seems only interested in life as a voyeur, a lover of internet porn, and most ominously experiments with asphyxia as a way of enhancing solitary sex.    Kyle's only friend is Andrew, who perhaps has befriended him only in order to escape a worse home life with his alcoholic mom. 

Kyle, played by Daryl Sabara

Then in the full flower of his adolescent awfulness Kyle accidentally strangles himself to death while masturbating.  His Dad is stricken because despite all the shit he's taken from his son he still loves his son, and to save his son postmortem embarrassment, pulls his trousers back up, concocts a suicide note, and makes it look like a suicide.    Then by ghost writing his dead son into something more noble and sensitive than he really was in life he creates a groundswell of public sympathy for the person Kyle never was. 

This is a black comedy.  You take a subject that is pretty gruesome, like death, and then satirize the mass condolence that follows, and never mind that in death many people take on a saintly patina they never had in life.  In that sense it is a great film.  I knew that somehow the truth would have to come out in the end and all the well-intentioned falsehood perpetrated in the charade kind of made me cringe, but not so much that I did not keep watching.   The ending was upbeat, against all expectations and the moral of the story was that it is far better to be true to yourself than to be false to the world.

The fact that Robin Williams, who plays the lead,  killed himself in early August 2014 in much the same way and probably WAS committing suicide adds a note of pathos to the role.   Williams does not do any impressions or any of his trademark improvisational humor in the role.   He plays the sad, long suffering father and teacher very well, too well.  I for one will miss him.