Toni Erdmann

Sony Pictures Classics | Release Date: December 25, 2016

7.1	USER SCORE Generally favorable reviews based on 189 Ratings

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SpangleMay 5, 2017

Toni Erdmann is not a funny movie at all. It is cringe comedy for two hours and forty two minutes. This film is a major misfire that really flew right past me and made me wonder if everybody else was watching the same film I was. Immediately,Toni Erdmann is not a funny movie at all. It is cringe comedy for two hours and forty two minutes. This film is a major misfire that really flew right past me and made me wonder if everybody else was watching the same film I was. Immediately, I knew that this was a film that would likely not be my style once the character of Winfried Conradi / Toni Erdmann (Peter Simonischek) was introduced. With childish jokes left and right that are incomprehensible as jokes in the human realm, the film continuously shows his prank-influenced style of jokes in a nearly three hour long compilation of YouTube pranks. Going to Romania to try and make sure his daughter Ines (Sandra Huller) is enjoying life in the country, the film shows him try to get her cheer up and become less serious. While their relationship is nice, the film itself is really anything but for most of the runtime.

The jokes vary from being completely undetectable to being cringe-inducing when he ruins her business dealings in Romania to being just flat-out childish. Examples of each are when he tells the guy there is a bomb in a package, him creating the alter ego of Toni Erdmann who holds various titles and is all an inside joke where he pretends to be somebody else to creep on his daughter, or when he sits on a whoopy cushion. In essence, whoever conceived of the comedy in the film likely just finished watching an Adam Sandler movie and Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot. Considering I did not like the latter and Sandler movies are universally trash, there is no way Toni Erdmann was going to be a film I was going to enjoy with this style of comedy and awkward humor at its core. There was honestly not really a moment where I chuckled or came near smiling, except in sarcasm when I got progressively more-and-more aggravated that I was wasting nearly three hours of my life watching this schlock.

However, fortunately, its drama is very good at times. I still hate the father character who is one-note and has no idea how to relate to his daughter beyond making childish daughters. Meanwhile, his daughter is a serious businesswoman. Sure, I do not understand having that much passion for your career, but she does. Why is she the bad guy who just will not let her grating father into her life? He sucks. I would cut him off too. What is worse is when his influence begins to rub off on her with the cringe-inducing naked party to build team chemistry. A last second decision to cover up her own error, the party is a failure and an intensely awkward at that. However, Toni Erdmann really saves itself in the final act with a raw and emotion-filled scene between Winfried and Ines where they discuss happiness and life. The two have finally come together again and no longer have that great distance between them, which is a nice thing to see. I just wish that Winfried was not eye gougingly annoying, which is he is not in his best moments such as at the egg painting party. Raw and open about who he is and how he wishes his daughter could lighten up, the audience can really root for the guy in this moment. Unfortunately, it is immediately followed up with him showing up to the naked party in a huge mascot outfit, which is a major turn off and plays too heavily on absurdist and awkward humor, considering his daughter is naked right in front of him.

However, the strong dramatic leanings of the film are undone with a gratuitous runtime that never really justifies itself. The film floats by for nearly three hours and I could never really figure out why it had done so. This is a film where I wish some American studio got their hands on it and cut it down from 162 minutes to 90 minutes. It never needed to be that long and needed to go under the knife for some serious liposuction. As it stands, it is a tall task to watch with practically no enjoyment in store whatsoever. It is not funny. Its drama borders on annoying until the final act. Its characters are all one-dimensional with Winfried being nothing but a goof ball who loved his dog and daughter, while Ines is just a stuck up **** of a businesswoman (a character trait that is becoming far too common nowadays, as if there is no middle ground between a woman who is passionate about her career and one who is just a callous **** who cuts jobs without blinking). Thus, even its character study inclinations fall flat and really reveal very little about the nature of the characters as individuals, only in the context of how they behave with one another.

Fortunately, it is this father-daughter relationship and both of their attempts to try and mend that broken link. However, the film is so unrelentingly unfunny, crude, and poorly written, its emotional core is nearly entirely blotted out. Had this film been a tight 90 minutes or a little more, it would have been far more enjoyable, as a lot of the fluff and annoying bits would have been cut out. Unfortunately, it is 162 minutes long and never seems likely to end.… Expand

1 of 1 users found this helpful10

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Brent_MarchantJan 27, 2017

While the sentiments are in the right place, this overlong, episodic, painfully obvious offering consistently disappoints just when you think it's about to start going somewhere. Despite some genuinely hilarious sequences that, regrettably,While the sentiments are in the right place, this overlong, episodic, painfully obvious offering consistently disappoints just when you think it's about to start going somewhere. Despite some genuinely hilarious sequences that, regrettably, are spaced too far apart, this meditation on the things that matter in life is too slow and at times too forced to deserve the high praise it has been getting (including an Oscar nomination for best foreign language film that should have gone to a number of other more worthwhile pictures). A nice try but ultimately a big miss.… Expand

1 of 2 users found this helpful11

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TVJerryJan 20, 2022

A German music teacher (Peter Simonischek) has a strained relationship with his adult daughter (Sandra Hüller), so he decides to surprise her at work in Bucharest. Unfortunately, his appearance interferes with her all-consuming job. AfterA German music teacher (Peter Simonischek) has a strained relationship with his adult daughter (Sandra Hüller), so he decides to surprise her at work in Bucharest. Unfortunately, his appearance interferes with her all-consuming job. After being rejected, he creates an alter ego and insinuates himself into her career. His slightly absurd presence seems implausible and her reaction is surprisingly muted, however it's pretty obvious where this is headed. Simonischek's performance is eccentric, while Hüller eventually lets us see the cracks in her resolve. Even though the premise could be considered amusing, the execution was more European in its subdued approach. The historical literary definition of a comedy is a story that ends happily, but the modern audience likes to laugh. I didn't find one funny moment in the whole film and 2:45 is a long time to keep hoping for fun. (In German with subtitles)… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

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