World's Greatest Dad

Bobcat Goldthwait wrote and directed this minor film with Robin Williams in the lead. It is miles better than "Shakes the Clown". Williams is a nebbishy poetry teacher (no echos of "Dead Poet's Society"). His girlfriend keeps their relationship a secret from their co-workers. He is a single father raising a teenage son who is an asshole. The son is obsessed with pornography, has only one friend, gets in fights and is a terrible student. He's also surly and combativie with Williams and generally a pain in the ass. When Williams comes home to discover his son has killed himself by auto-erotic asphyxiation, he decides to shade the truth. He writes a suicide note and makes it look like an intentional suicide. The letter gets published and becomes a motivational missive to the students in school. Williams is suddenly popular, the girlfriend more responsive. His life is turned around, but he's haunted by a secret he can't share with anyone. He creates a journal for his dead son and uses excerpts of it to influence people in the thrall of the dead boy. This is particularly ironic because he is a failed author who generates a lot of material that no one ever read before now. Untimately the weight of it all is too much and he reveals that he concocted the writings on his own. He is dirt to his friends and colleagues, but freed from the weight of his guilt.

I feel I have to mention that Robin Williams strips nude for the ending.