I feel a teensy bit bad for that family or that innocent seeker of escapism who dials up this movie one night on Netflix and then gets assaulted with gags about erotic asphyxiation, the vilest sort of porn and crushing life failure. You know it’s happened. The poster makes this look like a typical hack comedy crowd-pleaser, right down to the cliche red font.
And this film DOES have a sweet and redemptive side, but you need to pass through the R-rated freak show to get there. The strong script (by Bobcat Goldthwait, who also directed) helps you along. It’s a clever take on the old comedy scenario in which someone lives a lie for personal gain. The story is a sideways-and-flipped-over (if you squint) variation on Nothing Sacred from 1937, in which Carole Lombard lies about having a rare terminal disease because she enjoys the fame.
Here, sad sack unpublished writer Robin Williams (in a fine, restrained, wounded performance) finds his Creep of the Year teenage son dead from masturbating to upskirt pics while choking himself. To preserve his and his son’s dignity, Williams re-stages the scene as an intentional suicide, complete with a fabricated note that lays out the son’s deep, touching and totally fake melancholy. Things get hairy when the note gets out to the press and it moves people. The son, despite being a selfish, mongoloid, near-sociopath whom no one liked, becomes an icon. From there, needy Williams gets the bright idea to write a “diary”, attributed to his dead son, and it becomes a sensation.
This is a movie about a lot of things. It’s about how even the worst of us can look better in death. It’s about how the deaths of others often turns people into cheap philosophers. It’s about how loneliness isn’t the worst thing in the world. It’s about the lure of tragedy. And it’s about how if you need to suffocate yourself to reach orgasm, you need to be careful. Or, even better, cut that out. Weirdo.