Lancelot "Lance" Clayton (Robin Williams) is a single father and high school English teacher. He dreams of becoming a famous writer, but his previous novels have all been rejected by publishers. His 15-year-old son Kyle (Daryl Sabara) is a pornography-obsessed underachiever who despises and is annoyed by everyone, especially his father.[4] Kyle is a student at the school where Lance teaches an unpopular poetry class. His only friend is Andrew, a fellow student who spends his evenings at the Claytons' house trying to avoid his alcoholic mother. Kyle's consistently poor academic performance and vile behavior gain the attention of the school principal (Geoff Pierson), who advises Lance that Kyle should transfer to a special-needs school. Lance is in a non-committal relationship with a younger teacher named Claire (Alexie Gilmore), who is spending time with a fellow teacher named Mike (Henry Simmons), whose writing class is more successful than Lance's. On nights when Claire cancels their dates and he is alone, Lance bonds with his elderly neighbor Bonnie (Mitzi McCall).
One night, after Kyle and Lance spend an evening with Claire, Lance discovers that Kyle has died in an autoerotic asphyxiation accident in his bedroom. To avoid embarrassing his son, he stages Kyleâs death as a suicide. He writes a suicide note on Kyleâs computer and hangs his sonâs body in the closet. A classmate later obtains the suicide note from police records and publishes it in the school newspaper. The note strikes a chord with the students and faculty, and suddenly many students claim to have been friends with Kyle and are touched by how deep and intelligent he shows himself to be in his writings.
Enjoying the attention his writing is finally receiving, Lance decides to write and publish a phony journal that was supposedly written by his son before his death. Kyle becomes something of a postmortem cult phenomenon at the school, and soon Lance begins to receive the adoration that he has always desired. Andrew finds Kyleâs suicide note and journals as highly uncharacteristic based on Kyle's personality when he was alive, but Lance brushes him off when Andrew confronts him. The journal soon attracts the attention of book publishers and Lance lands a television appearance on a nationally broadcast talk show. The school principal then decides to rename the school library in Kyleâs honor.
At the library dedication, Lance finds that he can no longer live with his lie and confesses before the school. Lance is denounced by the students and faculty, including Claire. Lance nevertheless feels reborn and dives naked into the school's swimming pool. Andrew tells Lance he knew the truth all along, and that he enjoyed Lance's writing. The two of them happily watch a zombie movie with Bonnie.
Where did a classmate obtain the suicide note from ?
from police records