Toni Erdmann (2016) User Reviews

Very Long Slow and Satisfying

[nowego · 6/10 · 28 May 2018]

Initially I didn't know what to make of this movie and while billed as a comedy, there really isn't much that I found laugh out load funny about it until the last third of the movie. There are lots of awkward moments, that some could find funny, but others will not like them.

Most will find this very depressing and will turn it off after the first 60 minutes or so, I nearly did, but thankfully I kept watching and really enjoyed the last third of the movie.

As a father I can speak from experience when I say fathers will do anything to make their children happy and this shows through in this movie. I felt the father's whole misguided aim was to connect with his daughter and try to cheer her up. He can see she is very unhappy with her life. He fails most of the time, but continues to try throughout the movie with sometimes interesting and funny results.

Overall I found this quite a deep, thoughtful and very German movie. Watch lots of German movies and you will know what I mean.

I would be very hesitant to watch it twice.

Multi without culti

[freebart · 8/10 · 20 August 2016]

The film is (partly) about the fact that the globalisation of production does not go hand in hand with the globalisation of (real) culture, and therefore people lose a part of their "humanness", and get a strange substitute for it, the so-called "corporate culture". This problem affects all of us and most of us must have encountered similar situations or feelings as the persons in the film, that is why imho it resonates with so many people. It is especially meaningful coming from a nation, which in the past produced the greatest artists and thinkers (and not only the dark years), and which by all its peculiar characteristics and abilities would be meant to oppose the above trend. Sorry if my English is a bit strange.

Strangely Compelling

[soundoflight · 7/10 · 7 July 2018]

After about 10 minutes of it, I came to the conclusion that "Toni Erdmann" was a terrible film and wanted to turn it off. But for some reason I kept watching, and kept watching, until suddenly 2+ hours had gone by. After watching, I still kind of think it's a terrible film, but also have an appreciation for the journey it took me on. I can see how some people on get the former experience, so one will have to judge for themselves whether this type of film is their cup of tea.

To me, "Toni Erdmann" is a film about emptiness. It's about empty people, living empty lives, all striving for something. While there are some solid laugh out loud moments in the film, I actually found it a bit depressing. I think I see too much of my own life and the lives of those around me here. These characters all seem to be desperately striving for something in their lives - to feel something - but all falling short.

In that respect, it's one of the most "modern" films I've ever seen - a film that really tries to capture the current time we live in. The vast majority of entertainment today tries to take us away to some other place, time, or culture, so this film is remarkable in how it takes on our society dead on. The impression left is not favourable.

PS: "Toni Erdmann" is quite similar to the Swedish film "The Square," so if you enjoyed one you will likely enjoy the other.

False teeth and the thing about happiness

[kamille-roboter · 10/10 · 14 July 2016]

Toni Erdmann starts slow and is in general a movie that takes its time. 162 minutes might suggest an overlong or very slow paced film, but in this 162 minutes we get a firework-like examination of a relationship between a father and a daughter. And yes, Toni Erdmann is a comedy. There are some moments that are so hilarious, that they gained applause mid film from the audience at my screening. But it is also a tragedy. A really complex one actually. There is so much loneliness in those characters, so much longing. Toni Erdmann is constantly entertaining, extremely well acted and emotionally compelling. A masterpiece of German cinema.

Are we Humans or are we dancer

[corneliu-ticu · 9/10 · 16 January 2017]

I liked this movie a lot. I met "these" people over the last 25 years in Bucharest and in Germany.

In this "new global world", the most of the time everybody is so deep into the details of "knowing how to be" because everybody is already like this, that if you take a step back and watch from a different angle you might wonder if anyone still remembers what it is to be a human. To remember the pleasure of feeling secure and loved by the ones that are guaranteed to be the ones that will do so. And finally if you get the right angle, you have to admit that everyone around you looks ridiculously, trying to find the detail in the detail that would make a difference, even if everybody does everything identically and there is obviously nothing else. The game about being a tough global business-woman/man, up to the most disgusting proofs to be the tougher one, is finally just flat and meaningless.

The whole story is wonderful true. The actors are doing a fantastic job making you feel the frustration and discomfort that should be seen and felt by everyone living in such a world. It is not a slow movie ... it is the shortest version of an never-ending slow life with nothing that would make your heart pound for the true meanings.

This movie brought two points to my mind. Einstein defined madness: - Trying the same thing again and again while expecting a different outcome. - Google was build on the simple idea that everybody is searching for something that everybody is already mentioning... Try to type "Apple" in the Google search field

Annoying to the nth degree

[lor_ · 27 June 2017]

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.

Toni Erdmann fails due to serious lack of character empathy , long duration and not much entertainment.

[johntheholder · 6/10 · 3 November 2016]

I love films , so I had to go watch one of the most talked about films of 2016 with all this fuss and awards going on about it.

As other IMDBers have already mentioned, the expectations were high enough , and I sort of demanded a good film. I cannot say I got that.

The story (which isn't really a story) roughly, is about a woman whose job is basically firing people off of other companies --- and her father who is bizarrely present and around her throughout most of the film , making awkward but somewhat distant jokes , supposedly to help her have a better life.

Toni Erdmann is a bizarre film for sure. Nothing wrong with that, just stating a fact. It's a film that shows us instead of telling us things. Which is respectful, elegant and admirable in a way and that's a plus for Maren Ade.

There are admirable things in Toni Erdmann , but for me there are also big flaws that reduced the overall viewing experience.

The fatal flaw to name, is the starkness and the extreme cold atmosphere of this film and all its characters. For me a film must offer entertainment , in the broad sense. Meaning that a film has to give us a variety of good things that'll "warm us". Good soundtrack , interesting and empathizing characters , a good atmosphere and locations , and of course a solid story that'll surround us and in the end win us with its charm so we'll want to re watch the film after it starts to rust in our memory.

I don't want to watch Toni Erdmann again. There was no charm that won me and so just one preview is enough. I didn't connect with the characters much , not that I don't have common things ,most of us get modern life's problems , and we have common issues with fiction characters who aren't too happy with their life. Its a safe bet. But this doesn't mean you connect with the characters as well.

Toni Erdmann felt very much like you are inside a fridge, sitting in there and viewing stuff in a cold environment. Too cold. Also it runs too long at 2 hours and 40 minutes for the particular story told. For the kind of praise it got , I expected better characters , better dialogues and in the whole a better picture.

The direction in its practical sense of camera placement and movement was mediocre and so was the photography which was pretty basic so don't expect "good pictures".

The admirable things about it, was the good acting, mostly by the father "Toni" but the daughter was modestly good as well in her role. The originality of the film's approach to the father-daughter relationship was another good thing. And lastly the film's themes and questions/problems addressed by the director/scriptwriter Maren Ade. The story had meaning behind it sure, but it was too elegant about those themes (the corporate world vs human values and what matters for modern man vs what should really matter.) These are honorable themes and Maren Ade seems like a decent person to explore and show us a few troubling things in the hope to awaken us, but as a film it was mediocre. Of course that's just my opinion, but I have to say there are some rules in Film making , and mrs Ade neglected a few of them.

6/10

Thought-provoking comedy - for a narrow audience

[joachimrang · 9/10 · 17 August 2016]

This is a great movie - but most likely not for everyone. It's about academic upper middle-class people and their family relationships. Not everybody will find that interesting and there is no usual "romantic" plot development. It's a family portrait of a father and her daughter and as such has no (plot) conclusion. It is not the usual light comedy since it touches very serious questions and the prevailing mood is unhappiness (it is however _very_ funny at times ;-)).

That being said, this movie makes some very fine and subtle observations, presents them in a funny and entertaining form yet at the same time in a thought-provoking and philosophical way which will make you think about it for a long time. If you're from an academic (german) household you will find lots of similarities in your own family relations.

This movie is not fast-paced - in fact it often has long shots of lonely people and a lot is not said but has to be filled in by the viewer. So if you don't relate to the characters this movie will feel longish for sure. But if you find traces of your own life or that of your friends and relatives you'll be amazed by the subtlety and finesse in which this movie is directed. Although there are some bizarre events, everything which happens in this movie could happen in real life. There are no implausible scenes in this movie! This is an incredible statement given the crazy and bizarre things which happen in this movie. If you wanna know how that could be true, you might wanna watch it.

get a little crazy to change the world (a bit)

[qeter · 6/10 · 30 July 2016]

Maybe I have read to many positive reviews about Toni Erdmann (btw. "Toni Erdmann" would be a wonderful brand name for fashion products like sun glasses). And my expectations went too high. Because, the movie does not fulfill the highest praise written by all of the professional reviewers. This is a low emotion movie. I guess, it depends mainly on the viewer, how involved he/she will get. Simonischek as father and Hüller as daughter play wonderful, giving the characters an authentic drive. Somehow Hüller's acting calls to mind the well tempered acting of Jodie Foster! In the movie the daughter is captured in the slippery profession of a top management consultant in East Europe. After the death of his old dog her father visits her for several weeks and tries to give her back some real life by making himself a fool to show all other are fools, too. His trick works out quite successful and shows surprisingly believable that individuals got much wider possibilities to act in real life to change the world, as they do in daily life by just following their little cushy habits instead. Just go for this movie. It is entertaining and it will give you some hints what is going wrong in/with your life. (and will go on wrong in future...).

brilliant hilarious drama

[vexyl · 10/10 · 3 August 2016]

This movie is one if this rare occasions that gives you the sensation you saw something very special today. It has some kind of unique comedy status like Monty Python or Bill Murray. If you think about a serious Monty Python or a more hilarious Broken Flowers you might come close to this movie.

The main theme is loneliness. A father realizes that his daughter is not happy even though she has a great career and pretends to be fine. So he tries to bring joy back in her life.

The acting is brilliant both Toni and Ines are as authentic as possible. Some scenes were so funny that i basically cried tears of joy. Especially the nude party is so ridiculous ... its actually one of best scenes i ever saw in cinema.

This is a great and very unique movie and i want to thank Maren Ade for this piece of art. Imho the best German comedy ever made. 10/10

Yes, Germans can be funny too

[rubenm · 7/10 · 11 September 2016]

Germans don't have a reputation for being extremely funny. In cinema, they are better known for their dramas than for their comedies. 'Toni Erdmann' is the exception to the rule. It's a German comedy and - surprise! - it has funny moments.

On the other hand, this film is as much a drama as a comedy. The focus is not so much on the humor, but rather on the relationship between a father and his daughter. The daughter is a tense career woman, who lives in Bucharest and doesn't really seem to enjoy her life. When her father visits her, he tries to make her unwind a bit by performing crazy pranks and practical jokes. It's because of these jokes, sometimes leading to hilarious situations, that the film is classified as a comedy. But on the other hand, there is always a bitter aftertaste to the humour, because it is secondary to the father-daughter theme.

As irritating and embarrassing the father sometimes is to the daughter, at last he succeeds in changing her attitude. This in itself leads to some bizarre and also dramatically strong scenes.

In my opinion, the script could have used some streamlining and there was no need to stretch the movie to 162 minutes. On the plus side: this film offers an original view to the question how seriously we should take life. And the two lead actors do a great job.

Is this the end of our perfect world?

[PeterAuer-Grumbach · 10/10 · 19 August 2016]

Maren Ade has created an opus which may be regarded as a universal comment on our global system where everything seems to be fine as long as economical progress is ongoing. However, we should not forget that pure progress induces dark sides as well.

"Toni Erdmann" has a great screenplay. Basically, it tells a father-daughter-story, but every sign of empathy seems to be frozen. Ines Conradi (Sandra Hüller) shows a great performance as she already did in "Amour Fou". She only lives for working and does not care much about family or emotional matters. All that counts is the progress of her career. Winfried Conradi (Peter Simonischek) interprets a loving father who only wants to spend some time with his daughter. As Ines facade cannot be broken, he starts disturbing her perfect world of rules and manners by becoming Toni Erdmann.

The screenplay does not contain many big plot points but convinces the viewer by the development of its great characters and the intelligent and often embarrassing dialogues. The audience is trapped by the society rules of this business world. Consequently, we are feeling with Ines who is more and more irritated by her father – now transformed to Toni Erdmann. He starts to shatter the stability of the system by his strange, unconventional character and jokes. The dialogues with excellent acting are so trenchant that moments of great humor are coming up.

Everybody of the business world looks strangely at Toni Erdmann when he appears but we start thinking about who is weird and crazy in reality. Is it Toni Erdmann as he is not behaving like everybody else would expect of a supposed business man? Or is it this whole community of economists which takes drugs and which feigns emotions? Maybe Eugène Ionesco can help us to find an answer.

The film itself, most of the time taking place in Romania, only rarely shows poor people as one would assume. Most of the time we just hear about the problems of a German enterprise which has to do some outsourcing. In many scenes we can see that Ines does not really care about the people around her. She is just a representative person of the company and keeps distance. Her father, on the other hand, does not care about society rules and is able to communicate in a simple, affective way with the people of this country.

Gradually Ines is influenced by the spirit of life and the philosophy of her father as she gradually throws off her mask. What does it mean to have a life where one does not have any emotional link to his colleagues? What does it mean to see progress only but to forget that man is a social being? Even when Ines is in front of her secret lover and colleague Tim, she is not able to show any emotions.

With Patrick Orth, director Maren Ade creates a light visual style which is ideally coordinated with the actor's play. We are in a world where we cannot foresee what happens next. When Toni Erdmann appears, everything seems to start trembling. The stability of our conformist and capitalistic system is threatened by the presence of only one "strange" character.

Disappointed

[robert-armon · 7/10 · 30 December 2016]

I watched this movie due to its high mark (especially by the meta-score)and in the last seconds I asked myself: so what ? Like we never saw solitude, loneliness movies ever...The acting is OK, but the subject is stretched over limits, and at a certain time I stopped to watch and went for a cigarette ! My understanding about this movie is about two societies with their characteristics (the German and the Roumanian) both mixed in a capitalistic globalization, I won't say without mercy but without care for real people. Perhaps the last or one of the last sentences of the father was that we work all time to accomplish some targets (typically German !) and don't pay attention to details along our life and then is too late....As a Romanian born young person, the atmosphere of Bucarest is very well depicted as well people surrounding the personages. But one shouldn't wonder, as these days the Romanian cinema is among the highest in its achievements, for example Mungiu's recent film "Bacalaureat" (aka Graduation)stands much above the present one. Sorry folks, but I wasn't left with a great impression.

Overly long and criminally unfunny

[eddie_baggins · 2/10 · 8 October 2017]

I feel at a loss when it comes to the love for beloved Oscar nominated German dramedy Toni Erdmann.

I've tried to understand why this excessive, criminally long and utterly weird (not funny) film, that at its core tells a rather generic and ordinary story of a father and his daughter has been so blatantly fawned over by many a top critic but I just can't see or understand why Maren Ade's tale has become the so-called classic it's been labelled with.

Over 160 minutes of runtime we the audience get the "privilege" of following around the odd Winfried Conradi whose relationship with his business driven daughter Ines leads him to take up a persona of Toni Erdmann, a self-professed life coach that starts to follow Ines around to become a part of her working life. It's a story with potential but told as dryly and blandly as Ade tells it, this ends up being a rare foreign film where you just can't wait to see a more tightly structured and funny Hollywood remake.

There's nothing wrong with Peter Simonischek or Sandra Hüller's central performances as father and daughter duo Winfried and Ines and the two actors are both game to partake in some odd scenarios, from cupcake antics, odd birthday parties to awkward nights out with the girls, but Toni Erdmann has surely hoodwinked people into thinking strange and bizarre is in fact genius at work and while some who like their films cut from the bizarre corner of filmmaking will lap up Toni Erdmann's fondness for the odd, there will be other viewers such as me you don't buy into what Erdmann is selling us.

It will be interesting to see how Hollywood tackles the stories untypical nature, but there's enough love flowing for the film around the place that acting legend Jack Nicholson has shunned his retirement plans to appear in the remake as the titular Erdmann while Girls superstar Lena Denham is attached to help work on the script, showcasing that Erdmann has its large portion of fans and few detractors.

Final Say –

Quite clearly Toni Erdmann wasn't for me and I understand that I will be one of only a few who didn't find this slow, charmless and cold experience that's trying to be an odd yet touching tale of a father and daughter, a sight for sore eyes.

For those that get on board the journey of Winfried and his quest to reconnect to his daughter, Toni Erdman will be near 3 hours' worth of quality dramatics with laugh out loud oddness, for the other bewildered few, Toni Erdman is one of last year's most unduly praised experiences.

1 cupcake out of 5

Lovely and touching

[Red_Identity · 25 December 2016]

There's just something really magical about this film. I had heard so much praise bestowed upon it but had never really read anything about its premise or plot. I found it to be a very lovely, touching, and brilliant drama, although it also functions as a comedy in more ways than one. I think the real gift of the film is that it's able to be so touching and charming without actually trying to be overly cute and sentimental. The screenplay does so many things and takes so many turns for us to keep on going on this ride with the lead characters. Peter Simonischek and especially Sandra Huller are really fantastic and give us here one of the best pairings of 2016. This is a film to cherish and adore and I really hope it finds an audience. I'm sure it will and I can't wait to see it again.

a gem

[bilyanapopovic · 10/10 · 6 September 2018]

Toni Erdmann is one of my favorite movies of all times. I've watched it for the second time tonight. It's kind of sad to see so many bad reviews here. Subtle, sublime, sophisticated.

Wildly funny, sometimes sad, and not like any other film

[runamokprods · 10/10 · 28 December 2016]

Deeply odd, often painfully funny, sometimes just painful (in the good, emotional way), and often all 3 at once.

A character study of an eccentric father trying to re-connect with his very straight laced adult daughter doesn't sound like it would be nearly as unique as this wildly idiosyncratic film. But Ade (who is terribly under known in the U.S. for her two excellent earlier features "The Forrest for the Trees" and "Everyone Else") manages to keep us delightfully (if sometimes very uncomfortably) off-balance for over two and a half hours as her film and characters resolutely refuse to go where we might expect from other stories with similar themes.

I loved the way Ade explains nothing. There is almost no expository dialog in the whole film. It's up to us to figure out relationships, the past, motives, emotions, sanity vs. madness, even simply what the hell is going on at that moment by really watching the behavioral details of some wonderful performances (especially by her two leads). While the film could perhaps have been trimmed a bit, and not every scene works as well as the best, it's without doubt one of my very favorite films of 2016.

I'm old enough and have seen enough movies that when a film-maker can give me an experience unlike any other I've had with a film before I'm thrilled. And that's what Ade does with this heartbreaking comedy. If forced to describe it with a gun to my head, maybe the best I could come up with for the tone and feel would be "Harold and Maude" as made by Ingmar Bergman. :-)

Film's potential is squandered.

[wxgirl55 · 6/10 · 9 September 2016]

My expectations were high. This film came away from Cannes with that rare combination of rave reviews from both audiences and critics. The title popped up on many 'must see' lists so I was thrilled to get a ticket to the Canadian premier, a screening on TIFF's opening night and at my favourite venue. The stars were aligned… but alas, for me this film failed on so many levels.

Part of the problem was that the movie opened up with a sensational scene. Our introduction to the main character, a brusque, elderly white-haired father (Peter Simonischek) is riotous and delightful. Within the first 5 minutes we 'get' who this wonderful personality is.

However, it only sporadically hits that soaring comedic note again. With the bar set that high there's an expectation to deliver. It didn't. At an excruciatingly long 2 hrs 42 min (almost 3 hours!) this film needed a serious edit and revamp. Wasting this film's tremendous potential left me feeling sad. And checking my watch. Not what you want with a comedy.

You know those hand-held contraptions used to gauge audience reaction at a political debate? On my subway ride home I imagined its outcome at tonight's screening. Sure there'd be a few off-the-chart moments, but for the most part this movie would flat-line.

• Yawning gaps between lingering scenes. - Vague characters who did little to serve the movie. - Secondary plot lines that meandered off like loose threads you wanted to snip away. - Expectation of a scene's culmination to share heart and wisdom… so close you could taste it… but then to watch it slip away into a growing muddle.

It's sad to see a movie with so much lost potential. In different hands... a director with tighter control, a more 'lean and mean' editor, a scriptwriter with a more focused bottom line… such 'coulda-woulda-shoulda' possibilities. Sigh.

I don't think I've ever entertained this thought before, but here's a foreign film that could use a Hollywood makeover. Ouch!

MOVIE SYNOPSIS: It's a father (Winfried) and daughter (Ines) relationship story. One dances uninhibited through life; the other marches with precision and focus.

A parent realizes his daughter's pursuit of success is driving away her chance of happiness. In his attempt to redefine what a successful goal in life is, he steps into her world and tries to bring along his devil-may-care perspective, hoping to entice her with frivolity and silliness.

My tagline: Sometimes you have to go to an extreme to scramble back and find the balance.

Extraordinarily funny at moments, heartbreakingly tender at others, but ultimately a feeling of dissatisfaction as the film's potential is squandered.

58 /100

14 /25 – Overall 10 /15 – Directing 11 /15 – Acting 07 /15 – Cinematography (colour, angle, camera position) 04 /10 – Editing (rhythm, pace) 06 /10 – Script (dialogue, storyline) 06 /10 – Music/score (sound foley, costume, make-up, casting)

A tale of what we've become

[stjopex · 9/10 · 17 August 2018]

This is a great story about society today depicted through a (bohemistic) father-(corporate) daughter relationship. There are couple of memorable scenes which made me bitter laugh out loud. Singing Whitney Houston and an absolute climax at the naked party are some of the best scenes ever. Movie has this Lost In Translation atmosphere where the city of Bucharest is both a medium through which characters interacte and a catalyzer of awkward situations. The film questions family relationships (father senses that life his daughter lives isn't fulfilling), corporate world, cultural and language differences, and above all, society as a whole ("...people are strange when you're a stranger..."). Fantastic acting, smart use of real life people which sometimes feels like Borat and brilliant writing. Thumbs up!

The most overrated film of the year.

[MOscarbradley · 7/10 · 17 February 2017]

"Toni Erdmann" is a father/daughter comedy-drama from Germany that critics are calling a masterpiece and the best film of the year when, in fact, it's just the kind of sentimental twaddle that Hollywood does somewhat more slickly and already we're told it's to be remade as a vehicle for Jack Nicholson in a role that could win him a fourth Oscar.

It certainly isn't a bad movie but it's far from being a great one and at almost three hours is way too long. The humour is broad and obvious and every plot device is signposted in advance. What redeems the film are the performances of Peter Simonischek as the father and Sandra Huller as his daughter. Indeed, Simonischek is terrific as the shambolic joker who decides to interfere in his daughter's business affairs when he feels she isn't coping and Toni Erdmann is the fictitious character he invents to activate his plan. Huller is equally good as the daughter who seems to have lost her way in life, (her rendition of 'The Greatest Love of All' is worth the price of admission). In fact, they are both so good I just kept wishing they had better material to work with. It's pleasant enough but I am still baffled by its success.

Top German Drama

[dakjets · 9/10 · 2 January 2017]

What a great experience this film was. This different story is based on family relationships, and explores these at a deep level. In this great movie, it is about the relationship between father and daughter. Two very different personalities who strive to create a better relationship with each other. I will not reveal anything except that as with any difficult family relationships, so it can be both demanding and tough. This movie is long, and has been criticized for it. But not by me. Every scene is important, and the movie never gets boring or tedious. The story develops. One of the best things about the film is that it is unpredictable, that the characters will surprise and amaze. Lovely to see and experience. I would also like to highlight the wonderful role performance. I just need to see more German film after this, there is no doubt. Recommend this. One of the best from 2016.

To Act, to Mask, to Break Free

[ilpohirvonen · 7/10 · 28 August 2016]

Maren Ade's third feature film "Toni Erdmann" (2016) has received an equal amount of tears and laughs at many film festival screenings ending with standing ovations. A maturely crafted and emotionally thought-through psychological treatise on the enduring theme of child-parent relationships, "Toni Erdmann" tells about an obsessive jester (Peter Simonischek) desperately trying to reconnect with his estranged, dead-serious daughter (Sandra Hüller) who spends more time on the phone and business meetings than with friends or family. This attempt turns into a strange play with the father devising a character called Toni Erdmann to help his daughter which will potentially result in the daughter taking off her social mask. The film is a welcome surprise from German cinema, which has lacked international acclaim for a few years, and a pleasant viewing experience as an eccentric combination of the absurd and the mundane as well as the tragic and the comic.

The brief synopsis given above might already reveal the gist of the humor in the film, but Ade's comedy does not fall short of insight. The main source for the humor is, of course, the dynamics between the father and the daughter as well as the father's awkward maladjustment to his daughter's professional habitat. This humor, relying on the superb performances of the two leading actors, is essentially supported by Ade's restraint style varying between such opposites as a tranquil continuity created by longer takes and more classical editing of shots with reverse shots, a hand-held camera as a realist denominator and a stripped soundscape as a stylized denominator where distant and quiet off-screen sounds are almost as conspicuous as a traditional music score is by its absence, spaces characterized by cold sterility (the daughter's apartment in Bucharest looks more like a hotel room than a home) opposed to blue-collar spaces with warmer light and color. Overall, a big part of the humor takes off from the fact that Ade's ironic narrative seems to keep its distance to the father's jests and jokes. There is a seeming coldness to Ade's approach. The jokes might make the spectator laugh or chuckle, while remaining to dangle in the void against Ade's stylistic program which gives no response to their echo of quietude.

Such subtlety is perfect for Ade's themes which require both duration in time and width in space. The secrets and untold memories, the many repressed feelings and desires, covered longings and missed opportunities are psychological phenomena which by their nature do not disclose themselves which is why Ade's decision to make a longer and less obvious film is, to put it simply, brilliant. It is as if Ade's narrative picked up by chance a recurring cycle in the human life resulting in unhappiness over and over again. This cycle is treated, above all, through the theme of acting from the daughter's constant need to play someone else, so to speak, in the business world while losing her true self to her father's corresponding need to put on a show which, however, can also work as an opportunity for breaking free from the act for the daughter.

While all this might make some accuse Ade of abandoning the social world at the expense of discussing the petty life crises of the upper middle class, it should be noticed that "Toni Erdmann" never falls short of recognizing social themes of a topical nature. The capitalist business world of the daughter's everyday life appears as distant and bleak where people lose themselves into the rat race of planning a career and the superficial mastery of the constantly changing languages (German, Romanian, English, French). The linguistic plurality correlates with existential emptiness as the words, which have been learned by heart a few weeks before important business meetings, fail to realize something real, causing one to become more and more distant from the timid shadows of one's identity. The social themes are there, but always filtered through Ade's main point of thematic focus.

In terms of both the question of the society and humanity, Ade refuses to give us answers. If the father's fictional creation of Toni Erdmann appeared as a parody of contemporary self-help and life coach culture, Ade's "Toni Erdmann" would remain a creation without self-assured help. There is act and emancipation but no absolute resolution. Instead of such an outcome, Ade looks at life in all its, both comic and tragic, absurdity without shielding a private part or averting an eye.

Don't lose humor

[gbill-74877 · 8/10 · 26 November 2018]

While I didn't think this film was all that funny, and found the main character more maddening than anything else, it was thought-provoking, realistic, and always interesting. A father desperately wants to stay in his adult daughter's life, resorting to absurdity, corny jokes, and outright intrusion to do so (e.g. hiding in her bedroom closet, showing up at her workplace, meeting her friends, etc). He assumes an alter ego with a set of false teeth and a wig and pushes the limits for what lies he can get away with, but it's never in a mean-spirited way, and it's as if he's trying to stay relevant in a world that has passed his simple ways by.

The movie gives us a pretty pessimistic view of finding a work/life balance in the two extremes it shows us; the father (Peter Simonischek) has little ambition and is a bit of an oaf, and the daughter (Sandra Hüller) works in the soul-numbing capacity of devising corporate strategies to outsource work overseas. The best parts of the film for me were in the depiction of corporate life - the politics, the 'big presentation', the schmoozing, and the clear stratification of those in this world (and at the top of this world) with common people. In one fantastic moment Hüller looks out of a high-rise office window and down at people living in poverty. In another, when commenting on having to take an executive's wife out shopping in order to be on his good side, she quips "It's Europe's largest mall and no one has money to buy anything." The scene where father and daughter visit workers in the country and he inadvertently gets one fired is also powerful. How disheartening is it to hear her reaction: "That's up to him; the more he fires, the fewer I have to fire." We contrast this with the kindness and dignity shown by these people, inviting him into their home when he needs to use the bathroom, and giving him a sack of apples.

The film seems to be putting two things side by side - how the innocent moments of childhood slip away in one's life, and also, in a larger sense, how we've let something else slip away - our humanity.

Unfortunately, it gives us a seriously disgusting sex scene in a hotel room involving petit fours that frankly I wish I could un-see. It probably has a point on top of the shock value, something along the lines of how tawdry and non-erotic an affair may be, or how we see her dominate others after having to be submissive to superiors at work, passing along the dehumanization - but I wish this scene would have been excised. On the other hand, I suppose in moments like this, Hüller belting out Whitney Houston's "Greatest Love of All" in front of a houseful of strangers, and her impromptu 'naked party' with co-workers, the film keeps us engaged by not having any idea what's going to happen next. There is an absurdity to it all, and maybe the father's advice "Don't lose humor" - don't take things too seriously - is the best coping strategy to life, which is too short and often depressing.

Another beautiful scene in the film comes at the end, when the father explains how fleeting moments from her childhood float up into his mind, and how he wishes those moments could be held on to somehow - and yet, despite that realization, misses a moment in the present by going off to search for a camera in the attempt to capture it. It's pitch perfect.

Really Nails the Discomfort

[derek-duerden · 7/10 · 16 July 2021]

Like many people, I'd heard lots of rave reviews of this film, but it had sat in my watchlist for a long time owing to its long running time. Having now seen it, I think the latter is perhaps a conscious part of the portrayal of alienation and, especially, discomfort at the heart of this film.

The capturing of the soulless business discussions was so accurate (been there, done that) that the scriptwriter is either brilliant or has a background in consultancy and outsourcing. I felt that the main character's need to get close to the senior client and ingratiate herself in ever-more-desperate ways was amplified by certain scenes being deliberately extended - to the extent that I felt sorry for everyone in the room and just wanted them to "move on". In particular, her compulsion to agree with the client at all points (even when he has just disagreed with her) and, most tellingly, his request that she take his wife out shopping; just when she's trying to be really relevant to his business strategy and impress her bosses, this tells us some very awkward truths about the power structure in all this. Her father, of course, views what she does as a form of prostitution - draining all the morality and fun out of her life. The brief hints of the kind of fun she manages (e.g. The sex and drugs) emphasise for us how little joy there seems to be there. She, however, counters very reasonably that he's not doing much of value with his time either - maybe he should think about the point of *his* life before criticising hers?

Underpinning the father/daughter story, there are some key scenes that illustrate the culture clash between "traditional" Romanian life and the harsh realities of globalised business, which made me think that the director was as much concerned to address this as the personal relationship. Perhaps even drawing a parallel ... as the father and daughter need to coexist without fully understanding or agreeing with each other, so too the poor and rich of any country are forced to cope with today's realities. What cemented this for me was her eventual move to McKinsey and Asia. She may have "changed" a bit through the interactions with her father and his alter-ego, and the death of the dog and her grandmother - but she continues on the corporate treadmill by working for the biggest parasitical company of all.

Very interesting and complex film.

The most over-rated film of the decade

[Irie212 · 3/10 · 16 January 2017]

The opening scene gives you fair warning. The camera lingers on the front door of a house. And lingers. A mailman arrives with a package. He rings. And rings. The door opens and Mr. Conradi appears (actor Peter Simonischek). He makes jokes about the package being for his brother, who defuses bombs. He calls into the house for his brother, then goes inside. We wait with the postman. And wait. The brother shows up, but it's Conradi in a wig and fake teeth. Eventually the scene ends. But the movie will continue like this for almost three(!) hours.

Conradi is in almost every scene, and he is a grotesque, ill-favored old man who treats people as if they were pawns in some grand comedy he's living. His main target is his daughter, a hard-working executive stationed in Bucharest (most of the film was shot in Romania). He treats no one with respect, especially not her, and he has no dignity.

Almost every scene would benefit from being shortened, some by up to half. Whole scenes (e.g., the handcuffing, the sperm-splattered pastries) could have been cut without losing any of the point-- which by the way, is anything but fresh territory. Many films have "carpe diem" as a theme. "Zorba the Greek" leaps to mind. But Zorba is a charming character. Mr. Conradi a.k.a. Toni Erdmann is not.

The multiple-award-winning actress Sandra Hüller holds the film together, and the scene, toward the end, when she belts out Whitney Houston's "Greatest Love of All," is a triumph of performance over production. That's pretty much it (and I'm not forgetting her prolonged nude scene). Without her presence, I would have walked out. This is a grossly overrated film, and an achingly long one.