Have you ever watched Back to the Future and thought, “Yeah, the whole mother has the hots for her son thing is creepy and weird for this otherwise delightful sci-fi romp… but I’d just love to see some incest that’s even creepier.”? Well, has Hollywood delivered the incest comedy for you!

I Love My Dad is about an estranged father and son. The 20-something kid has been in therapy and decides to block his dad from all of his social media. Dad retaliates by creating a fake social media account (using a real woman’s name and pics) so he can continue to spy on his son. Too bad they wind up texting one another and too bad the son falls in love.

The film is advertised as a comedy but I think it’s far more of a sad, tragic drama. I did laugh occasionally and certainly the movie gives us imagined, ahem, romantic moments between the father and son that are designed to make the audience freak out… but more of the flick is a kind of melancholy trainwreck just coming up over the horizon.

For all its lurid giggly cringiness, this is a smart and thoughtful film. It’s based on this lunatic idea, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t take itself internally seriously. And that timebomb at the heart of the film is definitely going off and the film earns the emotional meltdown through solid character development.

Patton Oswalt plays the hangdog dad in a very Patton Oswalt way. The son is played by James Morosini (who I’m not familiar with) who also wrote and directed the film. It’s a… courageous? Daring? Bat-shit Insane? thing to write yourself into a movie where you get to have (imaginary) intimate scenes with the catfish version of your movie dad (actress Claudia Sulewski) AND with Patton Oswalt himself. I’m not sure who does that… but… congrats? I guess?

I enjoyed this film quite a bit even as it was hurdling towards inevitability. Will you cringe? Most likely. Is this in bad taste? Yeah. Will you laugh? Maybe. But I think, regardless of all that, it’ll make you think and feel for these messed up people. And that’s something.

Score: 85