World's Greatest Dad (2009)

[lsanderson]

A Dead Teenage Loser Improves in Grief’s Glow
By STEPHEN HOLDEN
Published: August 21, 2009

“World’s Greatest Dad” shoots a poisoned arrow at the grotesque sentimentality that often attaches to the death of a teenager, in this case apparently a suicide, and the toxin leaks all over the place. After watching this extreme satire, written and directed by Bobcat Goldthwait, you may never want to attend another memorial for anyone at which tearful testimonials are read, gooey ballads sung and the memory of the deceased slathered with mawkish bromides. With a merciless acuity this nihilistic comedy ridicules collective grief and the news media’s cynical marketing of inspirational uplift after a death. Ultimately it scorns the human impulse to find a deeper meaning in any tragedy. More