Stockholm Film Festival

Comedian-turned-filmmaker Bobcat Goldthwait's third feature film as a director is a startlingly cynical take on death and loss. Robin Williams heads the cast as Lance Clayton, a writer and high-school poetry teacher whose dreams of literary acclaim seem very far away. He has completed five novels - none of which he can get published. He lives alone with his 15-year-old son, Kyle, an obnoxious half-bully, half-loner who claims to only be passionate about Internet porn.

When Clayton finds Kyle dead in front of his computer after an autoerotic sex act, he quickly camouflages the accidental death as a romantic suicide, casting Kyle as something between a Holden Caulfield and Kurt Cobain. The teenagers at Clayton's school get a martyr to pour their desires into, and Clayton finally gets his big break - only in a way he never could have imagined.

A black comedy, in its combination of laughs,and all out cynicism. Goldthwait's ruthless satire has gained great critical acclaim for its raw critique of contemporary culture's memorializing tendencies.

Cast

Robin Williams, Alexie Gilmore, Daryl Sabara, Michael Thomas Moore

Producer

Howard Gertler, Ted Hamm, Richard Kelly, Sean McKittrick, Tim Perell

Script

Bobcat Goldthwait

Cinematography

Horacio Marquínez

Music

Gerald Brunskill

Spoken language

English

 

Other films from the American Independents section

See all the festival films from 2009