One of my all time favorites.

How sad is this?

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

I was expecting better from the buzz I heard about it, but this felt like an edgy European version of the "kooky and infantile oaf teaches sad sophisticates how to laugh" movie. Except, where American movies tend to amp up the slapstick or stupidity of the characters, here the protagonist just uses awful props, out-of-touch dad humor, and absurdity. The absurdity of the final act does create a handful of moments of suspense, where you genuinely wonder what's going to happen next, but overwhelmingly there's never a payoff. The whole story is just two remarkably inconsiderate people interacting with a host of characters who don't seem to have enough cohesive traits to form their own personalities. I'm sure there is meant be a subtle running commentary on identity, considering the masks, the props, and the nudity, but instead of evoking any poignant reflection, it just induces eye-rolling annoyance. Imagine someone at your work handing you a stop sign and a plastic rose first thing in the morning and telling you to really think about it. The acting and casting are solid, and I suppose I should applaud the effort too, but overall, there's not enough to compel me to watch it again.

If a movie is this long, I would expect some credible character development, which does not take place. There are so many meaningless but cringe-worthy moments in this film that contribute nothing to the experience. It's quite difficult to empathize with either of the main characters since both essentially waste their time with meaningless, absurd activities. The father's approach to getting closer to his daughter is to interfere in a disturbing manner into her professional consultant life. A spontaneously nude party at the consultant's apartment represents the peak of ridiculousness of this movie since it's totally random, meaningless and the opposite of sensual. Maybe all this movie is trying to show is the utter meaninglessness of modern life. No need to waste precious time on this!

I found out about this German-Austrian film from both a television film review discussion, and when it came about during Awards Season, from hearing what it was about and its positive opinions, I was hoping it would be worth it. Basically Winfried Conradi (Peter Simonischek) is a divorced music teacher, an old-age hippie of sorts, and a passionate prankster. Winifried doesn't see much of his working daughter Ines (Sandra Hüller), pursuing a career as a business consultant, currently posted in Bucharest, Romania, working on an outsourcing project in the oil industry. Following the death of his beloved dog, Winifried travels to Bucharest to pay Ines a surprise visit, he puts on sunglasses and false teeth as a playful disguise, she chooses to ignore him, but later invites him to a business reception at the American Embassy. At the reception, Ines wishes to secure a consulting contract with German oil company CEO Henneberg (Michael Wittenborn), she tries desperately to get his attention, but Henneberg seems more interested in her father. Winifried tells Henneberg he has hired a replacement daughter, as Ines is always busy, to her surprise, she and her father are invited, along with the entourage, for drinks, at the bar Henneberg again brushes off Ines and makes fun of Winfried. After several days, Ines and Winifried struggle to get along, she is consumed with work, getting stressed and oversleeping, and she blames her father for most of it, feeling alienated and unwanted Winifried leaves in a taxi for the airport. Ines continues work as usual, several days later she arranges to meet two girls at a bar, while Ines and her friends, a man approaches, introducing himself as "Toni Edrmann, clearly it is her father with false teeth and a wig, but she does not let on as the girls politely engage in conversation. Ines is increasingly frustrated and unfilled in both her work and her personal life, but she encounters "Erdmann" sporadically at parties and outside the office, she is angry at first with her father, accusing him of trying to "ruin" her, but she starts to see the worth of her father's interventions, and plays along with his ruse. "Erdmann" accompanies Ines on a night out with her work friends, then joins her at a business meeting, in turn, "Erdmann" takes Ines to a Romanian family's Easter party, where he forces her into a reluctant but powerful performance of Whitney Houston's "Greatest Love of All", after which she swiftly departs. Back at her flat, Ines is preparing to host a business team-building brunch to celebrate her birthday, but she struggles with her dress and shoes, the doorbell rings, instead of finding a new outfit, she opens the door naked, telling guests that it is a "naked party". Each of the guests react differently some leaving in disgust, other self- conscious stripping off, the party becomes increasingly awkward, and Winifried turns up in a full-body Bulgarian kukeri costume, frightening Ines' colleagues, he leaves, but she follows, in the park the father and daughter share a hug, despite the impractical costume. Months later, Ines returns to Germany for the funeral of her grandmother, she explains that she has quit her job in Bucharest and will shortly begin working with McKinsey & Company in Singapore, after the funeral Ines and Winifried spend time in the garden playing with funny hats, and reflecting on the nature of happiness. Also starring Thomas Loibl as Gerald, Trystan Pütter as Tim, Ingrid Bisu as Anca, Hadewych Minis as Tatjana and Lucy Russell as Steph. Simonischek and Hüller are a most interesting father and daughter odd couple, there are some slow bits, and you have to keep up with the switches from foreign language with subtitles and English language, the most memorable moments are the awkward Whitney singing and the naked party, most of the laughs come from the eccentric characters and unpredictability of the ridiculous pranks, an unusual but interesting enough comedy drama. It was nominated the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film of the Year, it was nominated the BAFTA for Best Film not in the English Language, and it was nominated the Golden Globe for Best Motion Picture - Foreign Language. Good!

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.