HEARTFELT DADNESS

After reading my recent column in which I listed ten of what I regarded as particularly underrated or neglected films of the late lamented Robin Williams, a friend of mine got in touch to say that I had missed one: World’s Greatest Dad, written and directed by Bobcat Goldthwait.

Longtime fan of both Williams and Goldthwait though I am, I had to admit that I’d never heard of it. So my friend sat me down at his house the Friday evening after Williams died, and ran it for me.

He was right. This very dark comedy, (barely) released in 2009, was a significant omission, a striking movie in its own right, and loaded with troubling resonances in light of the star’s sad passing. The title has the ring of Disney-style pablum, but that’s hardcore irony.

Williams plays Lance, a high school teacher and prolific but frustratingly unpublished writer. His teenage son Kyle (Daryl Sabara) is an intolerable jerk—a selfish, mean-spirited, ignorant, disrespectful pervert who either rebuffs or exploits every single one of his dad’s attempts to bond with him. Nonetheless, when Lance finds the boy dead from an embarrassing accident, the result is one of the most heartbreaking minutes of acting Williams ever gave onscreen—and, of course, it has an additional level of sadness in light of its parallels to what the actor’s own family must have gone through.

Lance alters the scene of Kyle’s death to make it look like a suicide, and writes a fake note and diary for him that, when made public, turn the cretin, near-friendless in real life, into a posthumous hero among his schoolmates. It also turns Lance, for the first time, into a successful published writer, albeit anonymously, and he’s soon at the center of a Million Little Pieces-style hoax, though only Andrew (Evan Martin), Kyle’s shrewd sole friend, suspects anything.

Even without its retroactive tragic overtones, World’s Greatest Dad takes a satiric pitilessness towards its title character that makes it painful to watch. Goldthwait is to be credited for humiliating his protagonist so ferociously, though he’s also smart enough to give us some relief—he allows Lance a cute if obnoxious girlfriend (Alexie Gilmore) and a few other consolations.

Goldthwait also deserves credit for the general sharpness of his dialogue and structure. Funny though parts of his 1991 cult item Shakes the Clown—in which Williams had a cameo—undeniably were, World’s Greatest Dad represents an impressive advance.

Both as a performer and a writer, Goldthwait has always seemed to have zany outrageousness as his object—I interviewed him once, and he told me about a screenplay he’d written called Teen Jesus (somehow he’d never gotten a major studio to commit to that one)—but World’s Greatest Dad suggests a mature and reflective sensibility. Kyle’s apotheosis is a bit fuzzily dramatized, perhaps, but the characterization of Kyle is a small, appalling masterpiece: Goldthwait and Sabara (who played one of the title characters in the Spy Kids movies) collaborated on a devastating portrait of a parent’s worst nightmare, shy of actual criminality (for which Kyle would probably lack the initiative).

But the speeches Goldthwait gives Lance are his real triumph, strikingly plaintive and epigrammatic, and Williams responded to them with one of the best, most restrained—and, in its way, funniest—performances of his later career. The movie’s depiction of familial grief over a preventable loss does deepen the anger—however unfair it may be—at the fatal choice Williams made. If it was a choice.

ROBIN'S BEST

Like everyone else, I was shocked and saddened by the death of Robin Williams, apparently by his own hand after a lifelong struggle with depression and addiction. I’m a big fan, but his signature hits—Dead Poets Society, Good Will Hunting, Mrs. Doubtfire, Good Morning, Vietnam—aren’t, on the whole, my favorites. Some of what I think is his best, funniest, least sentimental, most ebullient work was in films that were ignored by audiences and panned by critics.

Below are some examples of the underrated or neglected “other” Robin Williams, which I would encourage you to give another look.

The Adventures of Baron Munchhausen—In his brief role as The King of the Moon, whose head and body are disconnected, in Terry Gilliam’s uneven but fascinating 1989 fantasy, Williams may have taken his fast talking, haywire routine as far as he ever did; he was like Mork squared, or like a live-action version of the Genie in Aladdin. This is one of several films on which Williams worked under a pseudonym—Bob Goldthwait’s notorious Shakes the Clown was another. Under his own name, Williams later gave an immensely touching performance in Gilliam’s The Fisher King.

Hamlet—Williams was just right for the foppish, fawning courtier Osric in Kenneth Branagh’s full-text version of Shakespeare’s masterpiece. Pity he didn’t get to do more Shakespeare. He was also terrific in a funny, quietly intense turn as the psychiatrist in Branagh’s Dead Again.

One Hour Photo—Mark Romanek’s odd little thriller about a lonely, alienated snapshot developer who becomes fixated on a seemingly picture-perfect family of customers is sad, unsavory and ultimately unsatisfying. But Williams brings so much gravity and pathos to the part that it’s essential viewing.

The Birdcage—This hilarious and sweet American version of La Cage aux Folles was a hit, certainly, but much of the attention went, rightly, to Nathan Lane as Albert, the maternal drag queen. It’s possible that the quieter excellence of Williams as the father posing as straight for his conservative future in-laws was a little overlooked. His scene with Lane on a bench, while a ship passes behind them, is one of the best he ever played.

Being Human—Bill Forsythe’s reincarnation drama, in which Williams played five people—or rather, the same person in five different lifetimes—doesn’t quite add up, but Williams is great in all five. As a prehistoric man in the opening segment he has a shattering moment, screaming “Mine! Mine!” as he sees his family being abducted.

Cadillac Man—Williams is a philandering, hustling car salesman who finds himself frantically trying to manage a hostage situation when jealous husband Tim Robbins brings a gun into the car dealership where he works. This 1990 comedy with dramatic overtones from director Roger Donaldson shows Williams as an irresponsible but essentially humane guy trying to stave off disaster.

Moscow on the Hudson—Williams plays a Soviet circus musician who defects in the middle of Bloomingdale’s in New York in Paul Mazursky’s comedy-drama. This performance was one of the first to demonstrate his remarkable range.

Popeye—Williams is buried in the title character’s persona in Robert Altman’s live-action version of the cartoon. But he gives amusing, stoic line readings, and his warmth and sweetness shine through the makeup.

The Survivors—Michael Ritchie’s satire of survivalists and gun nuts was poorly received, but its picture of the sort of chaotic modern life that breeds such reactionaries is mercilessly funny and original—it starts with Williams getting fired from his job by a parrot. Williams was rarely as precise in his manic style as he is here, and he seems all the crazier with Walter Matthau as his straight man.

The Best of Times—This football comedy, directed by Roger Spottiswoode from a script by Ron Shelton, is my favorite Robin Williams movie, but it doesn’t seem to be anybody else’s. It’s about a group of middle-aged men who get bamboozled into replaying a high school football game in Taft, California, by the bank manager (Williams) who dropped what would have been the game-winning pass back when. Williams is at his very best here. He never seems to be self-consciously playing the sad clown—something that, for all his great talent, he was quite capable of doing—and thus he’s truly lovable and poignant. And, of course, magnificently funny.

HEROIC FEET

2006’s Happy Feet was a truly crazy movie, a blend of Pixar-style animation, Bollywood musical & a streak of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. Set in a world in which penguins sing to connect with their soul-mates, the film focused on the unfortunate young Mumble, unable to carry a tune but endowed with a natural talent for tap-dancing.

It starts off, in short, as a fable about nonconformity & finding your own individual path—a good joke right off the bat, in the black-&-white uniformity of the penguin rookery (in The Far Side, Gary Larson once depicted a single penguin amongst the multitudes belting out “I’ve Gotta Be Me”). But by the end, director George Miller had spun the film from a sweet, if deeply eccentric, underdog tale into a grandiose environmentalist vision for which the word epic is hardly sufficient—“cosmic” would be more like it.

I’d be tempted to say it’s a one-of-a-kind movie, but as of this weekend, it’s not. A major box-office hit & an Oscar-winner besides, Happy Feet could hardly fail to spawn a sequel, & here it is, some five years later. In Happy Feet Two, Mumble (voiced by Elijah Wood) has the penguins mixing some fancy footwork in with their stirring oratorios—the tiny feet often splashing in ominous melt-water—but alas his own son Erik, ironically enough, isn’t much of a dancer. Poor Erik runs away from the shame of this, accompanied by two loyal pals, & Mumble heads off to find them.

While they’re gone, a huge chunk of Antarctic ice collides with the rookery, sealing thousands of penguins, including Erik’s Mom Gloria (voiced by Alecia Moore, aka Pink, replacing the late Brittany Murphy), off from the ocean. So it’s up to Mumble, Erik & his friends to try to find a way to save them—from hunger, from marauding skuas, & from general despair. Their allies this time include the Latin-accented Adelie penguin Ramon (Robin Williams) & his colony, elephant seals, electric-guitar-playing human researchers &, albeit unwittingly, two nearly-microscopic krill (Brad Pitt & Matt Damon) who have broken away from their enormous swarm to strike out on their own existential search for identity.

There’s also, of all birds, a puffin—named Sven, & voiced complete with Nordic accent by Hank Azaria—who has somehow found his way to the other end of the world. He’s been mistaken for a penguin who can fly, which gives him the status of a sort of self-improvement spiritual leader.

In other words, like the first film, Happy Feet Two is another big helping of off-the-wall weirdness. But also like the first film, it’s funny & good-hearted, & the musical numbers—which, a la Bollywood, freely mix snatches of the Rawhide theme, grand opera & Queen & Bowie’s “Under Pressure”—are thrilling, both in their relentless rhythms & in Miller’s dazzling, undulating visual perspectives.

Miller’s apparent purpose, this time, is to stave off the sense of despair that many of us feel over the seeming futility of individual action in the environmental struggle. The moral which the movie asserts—it’s also on the poster—is “Every Step Counts.” To this I can only say: I hope so.