This acclaimed movie, one of innumerable Sony Classics pick-ups and releases from the film festival circuit, annoyed me more than any other movie I've seen in the past 40-plus years. Early in the tortuous nearly 3-hour sitting, the memory of suffering through Peter Sellers & Ringo Starr in "The Magic Christian" all the way back in 1970 was the only comparable experience.
What these two films have in common is a know-it-all attitude on the part of the auteur (Ms. Maren Ade for "Toni" while Terry Southern authored "Magic Christian", directed by British journeyman hack Joe McGrath), providing enough satire of our modern society to cause the cognoscenti who make up the ranks of film critics & festival programmers to chuckle. I wasn't chuckling, but endlessly groaning.
In fact, Peter Simonischek's "embarrassing prankster daddy" performance reminded me not of one of Sellers' over-the-top characters but rather a generic adaptation of Jerry Lewis's various horrible novelty dentures mockery of "guys with funny teeth". Like Mickey Rooney's Japanese stereotype role in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" (perhaps Blake Edwards' only misstep in that classic production), we can now cringe at these poor choices by great comedians. But I suppose Maren and the sycophants who have raised this "Toni" to a classic contemporary film status, even to be adapted as a Hollywood remake for Jack Nicholson to overact in, all follow the tradition of European genuflection to the great Jerry.
For me, even more disconcerting was Peter's odd similarity to Giancarlo Giannini, as if the brilliant Italian actor had overdosed on pasta to put on heft for this showcase role. But alas, Simonischek is no Giannini, nor can Giannini hold a candle to his immediate forbears in the Italian comedy firmament: Manfredi, Tognazzi and Sordi being my favorites, two of whom I was fortunate enough to interview back in my film journalist days of the '80s. So even had Maren cast GG, this film would likely have still self-destructed.
Slogging it out to the bitter end, even more annoying was the glib and mindless ending Ade falls back on to round out her saga. Daddy Winifried and his alter ego Toni Erdmann are painfully hanging around our poor daughter heroine's neck like an albatross, or carrying Bill Murray's also annoying (but oh so successful with the fans) Bob to Richard Dreyfuss in ""What About Bob?" (the epitome of the comedy formula Ade is recycling, literally as old as the Monty Woooley "The Man Who Came to Dinner" play and film adaptation) to its extreme. He's supposed to be teaching his kid, in a ham-fisted way, that old lesson of "live, live, live", a theme I enjoyed endlessly back in the '60s watching films that became increasingly offbeat, perhaps reaching an apotheosis in "Harold and Maude". But what does Ade finish up with?
SPOILER:
She has daughter Ines (played by Sandra Huller) quit her thankless and straw man-hateful for the audience job as hatchet man/consultant to move to China and work as a consultant for McKinsey & Co.! Other than namedropping, this hardly strikes me as a Flower Power generation dropping out and starting anew but is clearly a cynical ending as misanthropic as the world view of dear departed Terry Southern.
Casting Huller, soon to be impersonated by Kristen Wiig, as typical a Hollywoodization as transforming Naomi Rapace into Rooney Mara, was yet another roadblock to enjoying or even tolerating this movie. From first sight, she hit me as if some conglomeration of Yank stars Gwyneth Paltrow and Claire Danes had been whupped by the ugly stick. Her walk- through performance was one-note (to be charitable), and the gimmicky full-nudity scene accorded her in the last couple of reels (more suitable to a Benny Hill sketch or other sort of Joe McGrath goonish soft-core comedy, "The Magic Christian" helmer having also directed the likes of "Girls Come First" and "I'm Not Feeling Myself Tonight") was quite off-putting. Getting back to the Giannini connection in my wandering mind, had Lina Wertmuller in her '70s prime directed something on the order of "Toni Erdmann", that didactic director would at least have let the viewers ogle a beauty like Mariangela Melato, thank you very much.
What these two films have in common is a know-it-all attitude on the part of the auteur (Ms. Maren Ade for "Toni" while Terry Southern authored "Magic Christian", directed by British journeyman hack Joe McGrath), providing enough satire of our modern society to cause the cognoscenti who make up the ranks of film critics & festival programmers to chuckle. I wasn't chuckling, but endlessly groaning.
In fact, Peter Simonischek's "embarrassing prankster daddy" performance reminded me not of one of Sellers' over-the-top characters but rather a generic adaptation of Jerry Lewis's various horrible novelty dentures mockery of "guys with funny teeth". Like Mickey Rooney's Japanese stereotype role in "Breakfast at Tiffany's" (perhaps Blake Edwards' only misstep in that classic production), we can now cringe at these poor choices by great comedians. But I suppose Maren and the sycophants who have raised this "Toni" to a classic contemporary film status, even to be adapted as a Hollywood remake for Jack Nicholson to overact in, all follow the tradition of European genuflection to the great Jerry.
For me, even more disconcerting was Peter's odd similarity to Giancarlo Giannini, as if the brilliant Italian actor had overdosed on pasta to put on heft for this showcase role. But alas, Simonischek is no Giannini, nor can Giannini hold a candle to his immediate forbears in the Italian comedy firmament: Manfredi, Tognazzi and Sordi being my favorites, two of whom I was fortunate enough to interview back in my film journalist days of the '80s. So even had Maren cast GG, this film would likely have still self-destructed.
Slogging it out to the bitter end, even more annoying was the glib and mindless ending Ade falls back on to round out her saga. Daddy Winifried and his alter ego Toni Erdmann are painfully hanging around our poor daughter heroine's neck like an albatross, or carrying Bill Murray's also annoying (but oh so successful with the fans) Bob to Richard Dreyfuss in ""What About Bob?" (the epitome of the comedy formula Ade is recycling, literally as old as the Monty Woooley "The Man Who Came to Dinner" play and film adaptation) to its extreme. He's supposed to be teaching his kid, in a ham-fisted way, that old lesson of "live, live, live", a theme I enjoyed endlessly back in the '60s watching films that became increasingly offbeat, perhaps reaching an apotheosis in "Harold and Maude". But what does Ade finish up with?
SPOILER:
She has daughter Ines (played by Sandra Huller) quit her thankless and straw man-hateful for the audience job as hatchet man/consultant to move to China and work as a consultant for McKinsey & Co.! Other than namedropping, this hardly strikes me as a Flower Power generation dropping out and starting anew but is clearly a cynical ending as misanthropic as the world view of dear departed Terry Southern.
Casting Huller, soon to be impersonated by Kristen Wiig, as typical a Hollywoodization as transforming Naomi Rapace into Rooney Mara, was yet another roadblock to enjoying or even tolerating this movie. From first sight, she hit me as if some conglomeration of Yank stars Gwyneth Paltrow and Claire Danes had been whupped by the ugly stick. Her walk- through performance was one-note (to be charitable), and the gimmicky full-nudity scene accorded her in the last couple of reels (more suitable to a Benny Hill sketch or other sort of Joe McGrath goonish soft-core comedy, "The Magic Christian" helmer having also directed the likes of "Girls Come First" and "I'm Not Feeling Myself Tonight") was quite off-putting. Getting back to the Giannini connection in my wandering mind, had Lina Wertmuller in her '70s prime directed something on the order of "Toni Erdmann", that didactic director would at least have let the viewers ogle a beauty like Mariangela Melato, thank you very much.