Lance Clayton (Robin Williams) is an English teacher who has a rotten teenage son named Kyle (Daryl Sabara).  Some teenagers go through a rebellious phase.  Some teenagers are troubled because of how they were raised or a recent trauma.  Some teenagers are misunderstood.  Kyle is just a disrespectful and stupid jerk who seems destined to do nothing his life.  He’s the type of fifteen year-old boy who uses his phone to secretly take upskirt pictures of his Dad’s girlfriend while they’re all out for dinner.

Those upskirt pics prove to be the last thing that Kyle sees as he’s looking at them where he dies in a case of autoerotic asphyxiation gone wrong.  Lance impulsively stages Kyle’s death to look like a suicide, both to preserve Kyle’s dignity and his own.  Lance, a frustrated writer, composes a suicide note and signs it with Kyle’s name.  When the note is leaked to the press, Kyle is hailed as a sensitive young man and becomes a hero to the former classmates who used to hate him.  Lance goes on to forge and publish a journal, which he claims was written by Kyle.  Kyle is hailed as a hero and Lance as the “world’s greatest dad.”  Lance enjoys the fame, until he doesn’t.

World’s Greatest Dad is a dark comedy, one that has the courage to often be downright unpleasant in its portrayal of how Kyle’s memory is idealized after his death.  It also features one of Robin Williams’s best performances.  Almost every performance that Williams gave had at least a hint of sadness to it.  In this film, he plays one of his saddest characters, a well-meaning teacher who cannot understand how his son has become such a jerk.  By writing the journal, Williams is not only deceiving the rest of the world but also himself.  He’s recreating Kyle as the son that he wanted as opposed to the one he got.  It’s one of Williams’s most emotionally honest and open performances.

For obviously reasons, it’s not easy to watch Williams playing such a depressed character, especially one who staes a suicide but the film really does show what a great actor Robin Williams could be.  In the end, his talent is what we should remember and celebrate.