Review of World's Greatest Dad (2009) by Helen P — 21 Sep 2010

There are a few tonal hiccups early on, as Goldthwait settles into a very particular comic groove, but otherwise "World's Greatest Dad" marks a significant improvement on the director's earlier films, which played like envelope-pushing ideas in dire need of development.

At its centre is a perfectly pitched Williams performance, avoiding both the unbearable sincerity of "Patch Adams" and the intolerable wackiness of, well, "Patch Adams"... You could question how ironic Goldthwait's constant recourse to musical montages is intended to be, but these sequences connect a fair bit of funny business, like the publishing guru who seems to speak only in similes (on the heat being generated by Kyle's diary: "it's like a volcano on the sun"), and the unlikeliest celebrity cameo of the year.

(Sorry, but that's just the way it is.) In the end, it's not the grand satire it might have been - Goldthwait doesn't, as yet, have the resources of a Billy Wilder at his disposal, and the finale, a countercultural rewrite of all those PG-rated "to thine own self be true" conclusions, isn't quite forceful enough - but it is getting at something knotty and pertinent: our continuing desire for the creation of false idols, and our addiction to such grief as might cloud all our better judgement.