Toni Erdmann is a 2016comedy drama film, produced, written and directed byMaren Ade. It starsPeter Simonischek as an eccentric man who intrudes upon the life of his daughter, a career-focused business executive played bySandra Hüller.
Toni Erdmann premiered on 14 May 2016 at theCannes Film Festival, where it competed in the main competition. It was released in Germany and Austria on 14 and 15 July, and grossed $11.7 million on a $3.2 million budget. The film received wide acclaim from critics for Ade's direction and writing, as well as Simonischek's and Hüller's performances.Sight & Sound namedToni Erdmann the best film of 2016. At the29th European Film Awards, it won five awards, includingBest Film (a first for a film directed by a woman). It was nominated for theBest Foreign Language Film at the89th Academy Awards.
Winfried Conradi is a divorced music teacher fromAachen with a passion for bizarre pranks involving several fake personas. Following the death of his beloved dog, he decides to reconnect with his daughter, Ines, who is pursuing a career in business consulting. Ines is working inBucharest,Romania, on an outsourcing project in the oil industry. Consumed by her work, she seems to have little time for her family.
Winfried spontaneously travels to Bucharest and waits for Ines in the lobby of an office complex. After several hours, she finally appears, accompanied by several of her client's board members and on the way to a meeting. Winfried puts on sunglasses and fake teeth as a playful disguise, and approaches the group from the side while hiding behind a newspaper. Ines ignores him, but meets with him briefly after work and invites him to a business reception at the US Embassy.
In the evening, Winfried and Ines attend the reception, where they meet Henneberg, a German oil company CEO with whom Ines wishes to secure a consulting contract. Ines tries to gain Henneberg's attention, but Henneberg seems more interested in her father. Winfried tells Henneberg that he has hired a replacement daughter because Ines is always busy. To Ines's surprise, Henneberg invites Winfried and Ines for drinks, along with his entourage. At the bar, Henneberg once again brushes Ines aside and makes fun of Winfried.
After several days, Ines and Winfried are struggling to get along. Stressed out from work, Ines oversleeps, missing a planned rendezvous with clients, and blames her father for not waking her up. Feeling alienated and unwanted, he leaves in a taxi for the airport. Ines continues with her work as normal, and several days later arranges to meet two female friends at a bar. While Ines and her friends are chatting, a man approaches and introduces himself as "Toni Erdmann". The man is clearly Winfried in a wig and false teeth, but Ines does not let on. Her two friends politely engage "Erdmann" in conversation; he explains that he is a "life coach" and consultant visiting Bucharest to attend the funeral of his friend's turtle.
Ines is increasingly frustrated and unfulfilled in her work and personal life, but continues to encounter "Erdmann" sporadically at parties or outside her office. At first Ines is angry with her father, and accuses him of trying to "ruin" her, but as time goes on she comes to see the value of her father's interventions in her life, and plays along with the ruse. "Erdmann" accompanies her on a night out with her work friends, and eventually even accompanies her to a business meeting. In turn, "Erdmann" takes Ines to a Romanian family's Easter party, where he forces her into a reluctant performance ofWhitney Houston's "Greatest Love of All". After singing, Ines promptly rushes off.
Back at her flat, Ines is preparing to host a business team-building brunch to celebrate her birthday. She struggles to zip up her tight dress, realizes her shoes don't match, and attempts to change clothes. The doorbell rings. Instead of redressing, or changing her outfit, she opens the door wearing only her underpants. The first guest is her friend Steph, who offers to help her get dressed. Ines refuses, and when the next guest arrives she spontaneously removes her underpants and answers the door naked, telling her guests that her birthday brunch is a "naked party". Each of them reacts differently, with some leaving in disgust while others self-consciously strip. As the party becomes increasingly awkward, Winfried arrives dressed in a full-body Bulgariankukeri costume. The costume first scares, then amuses, the partygoers, and Winfried soon leaves. Ines follows him. Outside in a public park, they hug, Winfried still in costume. She leaves the park. Winfried lies down on the grass, exhausted, and then seeks help from a hotel desk to remove the costume's head.
Months later, Ines returns to Germany for her grandmother's funeral. She has quit her job in Bucharest and will shortly begin a new one inSingapore. While talking with Winfried in the garden, Ines grabs the fake teeth from his shirt pocket and puts them on. Winfried says he wants to take a photo and goes to get his camera, leaving Ines alone in the garden.
The character of Winfried was loosely based on Ade's own father, who wore a pair of fake teeth she gave him as a gag gift to play practical jokes.[5] She was also influenced by the comedianAndy Kaufman's alter egoTony Clifton.[6]
Ade set the film inBucharest in part because many German companies had begun to do business there at the end of the Communist era, with many foreign consultants sent to "change the system" and help businesses turn a profit. "And I like the new wave of Romanian films right now, too. So it’d be fun to work there."[7]
Toni Erdmann had its world premiere at the2016 Cannes Film Festival.[8][9] The film was originally accepted into the festival's less prestigiousUn Certain Regard section, but the night before the April press conference Ade and her producer were informed that it had been selected to compete for the Palme d'Or.[10] Shortly thereafter,Sony Pictures Classics andThunderbird Releasing acquired US, Latin American and UK distribution rights to the film, respectively.[11][12]
The film was released in Germany on 14 July 2016,[22] Austria on 15 July 2016,[23] and Switzerland on 21 July 2016.[24] The film was released in the United States on 25 December 2016.[25]
Critics have called the film adadaesque[26][27][28]comedy-drama. Ade said she thought the story "always had both genres within it, because [Winfried is] playing a comedy for [Ines], but he’s doing it out of desperation." In writing the script, Ade was interested in the film's comedic potential, but had doubts during the filming. "Then, when we edited the film, I found that the comedy was even stronger because we took things so seriously. For example, in scenes like the naked party where the boss is standing at the door, it was really necessary in terms of comedy for it to be as existential as possible" with the "actor not thinking of it as a comedy".[29]
Hüller said that she always thinks "about how humor works" and it was this question "we were asking ourselves during the process. What is it that makes people laugh? What is funny about Toni? I think...desperation...is the origin of comedy." Falling out of a chair is "the oldest joke". But even when things don't work, "you really have to try, seriously. I think that’s what we did — you never have to play the joke."[29]
Toni Erdmann opened on July 14, 2016, in Germany and was watched by 752,000 domestic viewers that year. The movie was widely advertised through all public media channels and became the 40th most watched movie in Germany in 2016.[30]
The film received universal acclaim from critics. It holds a 93% approval rating on review aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, based on 234 reviews, with an average rating of 8.3/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Toni Erdmann pairs carefully constructed, three-dimensional characters in a tenderly funny character study that's both genuinely moving and impressively ambitious."[31] OnMetacritic, the film holds a rating of 93 out of 100, based on 36 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".[32]
The film was named the best film of the year by the French magazineCahiers du cinéma.[33] The British film magazineSight & Sound also named it the best film of 2016 in its poll of 163 critics worldwide.[34] In a 2016 international critics' poll conducted byBBC, the film along withRequiem for a Dream and the film version ofCarlos tied for the 100th greatest motion picture since 2000. It also topped the American magazineFilm Comment's Best Films of 2016 poll.[35] TheNew York Times’s chief film critics,A. O. Scott andManohla Dargis, included it on their lists.[36]
In August 2016, the film won theFIPRESCI (International Federation of Film Critics)'s Grand Prix for best film of the year, the first time this accolade has been awarded to a female filmmaker.[38][39]
