Toni Erdmann

When I watched Conan O'Brien visiting Berlin with his show a while ago, he made the whole city seem incredibly bizarre and perverse. Despite this notorious reputation that Germany seems to have, I didn’t think it could be that serious with our neighbors. Well, Toni Erdmann offers some more irrefutable evidence that the Germans are just weird. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen such an eccentric comedy-drama. I intentionally don’t call this a pure comedy because it's more of a conversational "drama" that lasts almost three hours. But don't worry, you'll have fun. Not because of standard jokes, but rather because of completely unexpected situations, which had me staring at the screen incredulously, finding it hard to believe what I was seeing. It’s some truly bizarre stuff, but, in a weird way, it’s actually funny and well made. It's hard to describe it, it’s simply one of those must-see films. But don't expect to be laughing from start to finish. The overall impression is serious and sad, because the whole time you are watching those empty characters as they are hiding their true self. Let me just add two things, namely that the birthday party is an absolutely perfect mixture of humor and awkwardness, and I just had to laugh out loud looking at the unidentifiable Bulgarian mask. And then you should look forward to "THAT" scene which everyone speaks about but prefers not to describe, and I’m not going to either. Just a German Thing. (29/03/2017)

Toni Erdmann is a very original drama with comedic elements imbued with a huge dose of humanity. At the beginning, I was a bit worried about the longer runtime, but after a few minutes, I was so drawn into the story that I felt like I was being blown through a centrifuge. I would like to highlight the performance of Peter Simonischek, who took on the role of the aged teacher Winfried Conrad in a completely disarming way. His efforts to reunite with his daughter, who had become a spineless careerist, were extremely heartwarming, even if he sometimes used some pretty annoying pranks to achieve his goal. Sandra Hüller, on the other hand, as the workaholic Ines, gradually began to resemble the image of a girl loved by her father, as clueless in life as she was in her childhood. It should be noted that both actors were amazing. In addition, there were quite a few situations in the film where I didn't know whether I was tearing up with laughter or with emotion. For the tangle of emotional outbursts and several unforgettable scenes, I simply have to give the film full marks. (17/07/2020)

Yes, it’s awesome. The initial impressions immediately after the screening were too stirred and I had a few reservations about some dull or superfluous scenes that disproportionately stretched this otherwise unprecedented (literally) great tragicomedy, but in hindsight they feel like a brilliant bridge between the sad and humorous passages across the whole unpredictable film. What is clear, though, is that I haven't laughed so heartily and been so genuinely moved in a long time, and that only another screening will help me discover how brilliant and emotionally balanced a film Toni Erdmann really is. So far, it has won me over. (28/10/2016)

I could rave about how well the German filmmakers managed to handle a serious theme, but I'd be lying. I don’t think it takes a nearly three-hour film, where often nothing happens, to convey how a father and daughter have a different perspective on life. Perhaps I would have given a higher rating, but the runtime literally murdered the film and almost me with it. I gotta appreciate the excellent costume at the end of the film, to which I can only say Fish On. (17/06/2017)

Toni Erdmann is one of the movies that you find out about and that you never forget. A German dramedy that takes 162 minutes? And on top of that generally praised and with an Oscar nomination? That’s strange, don’t you think? So I wanted to avoid all the strange theories and I decided to watch the movie. But the result was one big disappointment because I sure had not expected such an average movie. You see Toni Erdmann starts off very slowly. In the first 15 minutes, I was thinking that I would give it some time. The premise looked good, the length was brutal, so I’d let the movie run its course before forming an opinion. But the problem was that the movie had the same atmosphere for its entire duration of almost three hours. The teacher Winfried shocked me a bit at the start with his wackiness, but gradually the position of the misunderstood hero was taken over by his daughter, who was even wackier. But at that moment Winfried turned into Toni Erdmann and every now and then there was a scene that was supposed to be funny. I think I may have had a problem with the fact that I didn’t find them funny at all. Quite the opposite. I felt a great sadness in Winfried’s soul, which was trying to understand his daughter’s life in Romania, which I guess a normal person cannot even imagine, let alone Winfried. A very strange film that does have its interesting moments, but I really took nothing from it. And I had really been looking forward to it. (30/01/2017)