There is a point of time towards the end of Toni Erdmann where you’ll be urging the film to hurry along, so have a little patience mustered up before sitting down to watch this one. But the rewards… oh my goodness!
The storyline follows the often bizzare relationship between a father and his grown-up daughter. The situations they get themselves into or put each other into are riotous. There are several scenes you will never banish from your head – not that you would want to.
As an added bonus, if you ever wanted an insight into the disingenuous world of corporate management consultacies, this is it. I worked in the industry for 5 years and how it is portrayed here is spot on.
Toni Erdmann is a subtle, thoughtful film which conjures up fantastical situations which will tear up your insides with laughter and, simultaneously, melt your heart.
Wonderful Cinema strongly recommends you do not ruin the impact the director meticulously planned for you by watching trailers or reading spoilers. For those of you who cannot resist:
You can find more information on this German-Austrian film on Wikipedia, IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes.
Production Details
Title: Toni Erdmann
Director: Maren Ade
Year, Country, Language: 2016, Germany/Austria, German
Stars: Sandra Hüller, Peter Simonischek (click here for full cast)
Screenplay: Maren Ade
Cinematography: Patrick Orth
Editing: Heike Parplies
Wonderful Cinema 
I confess I don’t know this one. However, it sounds exactly like my cup of tea! On the wish list as we ‘speak’. 🙂
Best wishes, Pete.
Excellent stuff!
Thought it to be a bit weird, but not too bad
Oh, I loved it. But different strokes for different strokes, eh!
I wasn’t blown away by this one as a “film of the year” candidate like everyone else but I certainly appreciated its themes and occasional quirky humour (the bits I understood anyway… 😉 )
Hi Lee – Happy New Year!
I thought it was wonderful. It spoke to me a lot about how easily it is to abandon one another through miscommunication.
Happy New Year to you too! 🙂
The girls are kicking strong, good for them!!! Me mucho glad to see fresh and sensible approaches and fucking inteligent humour in the ossified macho dominated buizz. Like Ildikó Enyedi’s *On Body and Soul*. Though still a whole lot in the watchlist, *Toni Erdman* is by far the more complete film I’ve seen from 2016… like *Leviathan* blown (to me) everything out of the watter in 2014… But Mr. Zvyagintsev is a light master of the truth. Such a cool poster too. Good one Shims, here a 45ø huggio ,-)
Ooh, Max, I’ve seen Zvyagintsev’s The Return by I haven’t gotten around to Leviathan yet! Maybe tonight!!
I’ll check out Enyedi’s film too. Thank you.
Have you seen Werckmeister harmóniák? Utter brilliance.
Zvyagintsev is ALL good, like Ceylan, two great masters (alive); very honest old school director in everything good that old has/had, in the intelectual work, in the presentation, in the social commitment, in the sensitivity, in the not tinkering with the story, in not loosing his shit over the characters, in the trust of the audience’s inteligence, in the deeph of the study of the
medium, of its language, he inherited best trad from russky kino. His last Loveless is a hard punch on the stomach… mirror of the disaster that humankind is becoming. I’m trying to write an article about him for… too long; need to rewatch all of his stuff. But before need to finish a a previous article about Patricio Guzmán… 💤💤
Anyway about Tarr and his Celestials… I know the eclipse scene at the bar ’cause a friend of mine was in love with it and showed to me; but Bela Tarr is one of those incontornables that I need to attack… like Mizoguchi, like Eisentein, etc. I like to drift a bit too much so my “studies” are like diarhea, je je je all over the place. Cheers mate, tamos juntos
Such a strange film! But also strangely heartwarming. Nice write-up!
Thank you, Anna!