‎Toni Erdmann (2016) directed by Maren Ade • Reviews, film + cast • Letterboxd

Toni Erdmann

2016 Directed by Maren Ade

Without warning a father comes to visit his daughter abroad. He believes that she lost her humor and therefore surprises her with a rampage of jokes.

Peter Simonischek Sandra Hüller Lucy Russell Vlad Ivanov Hadewych Minis Ingrid Bisu Trystan Pütter John Keogh Alexandru Papadopol Radu Banzaru Victoria Malektorovych Ingrid Burkhard Jürg Löw Cosmin Padureanu Michael Wittenborn Thomas Loibl Ruth Reinecke Irene Rindje Nicolas Wackerbarth

162 mins More details at IMDb TMDb Report this film

Popular reviews

Review by matt lynch ★★★★ 12

So when's the shitty Paul Feig remake with like Pacino and Rose Byrne?

[puts in goofy dentures]

Don't you dare steal my idea.
Review by davidehrlich ★★★★½ 9

it's true.

all of it.

(i have some major misgivings about the last 15 minutes, which feel — at least on first viewing — that they blunt out what could have been one of the great movie endings in recent memory, but everything you heard from Cannes about Maren Ade's shaggy epic is right on the money. the shortest 160 minutes you'll spend at the movies this year).
Review by Eli Hayes ★★★★½ 12

Almost everyone in my theater was laughing for about three hours straight. I think that speaks for itself; I've never quite had a movie-going experience like seeing this film with an audience.
Review by Filipe Furtado ★★★★½

“He was on old dog”.
That the humanist ideal of reconstruction Europe and the current European community can’t be reconciled is old news, but it takes an Andy Kaufmanesque prankster in a very old fashioned sentimental mission to, if not exactly exhume the corpse at least bring it into sharp relief. You'll laugh, you'll cry and things will just pass away. And it is really very very funny. Experimental human behavior played with broad Cassavetian exuberance at its best. Also, in the age of bloated festival film, it is always joy to get a 160 minutes one that needs every second of it to count.
Review by Jonathan White ★★★★ 21

TIFF16 Film #1

Reason for Pick – Eli’s Hayes’ review out of Cannes

Toni Erdmann is a complex dance that paints the outline of the relationship between a lonely father and his career occupied daughter, who's living abroad.

I went in with the impression that this was going to be two hours and forty minutes of non-stop laughter. It isn’t. While there are frequent laugh-out-loud moments, and two scenes that sends the audience into fits, the remainder ranges from poignant to painful to awkward. Writer / Director Maren Ade isn’t afraid to linger on a shot, often cutting a few seconds after the natural beat, which gives a feeling of reality over scripted drama. She also isn’t afraid to use…
Review by Michael Sicinski ★★★★

[8]

Well, Christian Petzold broke the ice, but it looks like Maren Ade's going to bring it home: the "Berlin School" has broken beyond the rarefied festival circuit to produce bona fide hits. What's particularly shocking about this turn of events is that, unlike other segments of the austere art-film universe, the Berlin School appears to have crossed over into the mainstream almost by accident. Apart from slightly more direct plotting, there's nothing about Petzold's Phoenix that made it inherently more accessible than his earlier films. And now, Ade gives us Toni Erdmann, a generational comedy that, at its core, is about the inappropriate character and unavoidable embarrassment that accompanies "humor" between the generations.

Ade has long been the stealth…

Recent reviews

Review by cinnamontography hussain ★★★★½

I am so glad I went into this film not having seen the marketing. Instead of expecting an offbeat comedy, I got to experience, without any expectations, what is one of the most profound and enthralling explorations of a broken parent/child relationship I've ever seen.

The film lives in the central performances of Winfried and Ines as a music teacher in mid-life crisis and a physically and emotionally distant business consultant. You feel their desperation as they're trying so hard to show the other that they care in the right way and seeing it backfire drastically every time.

The film manages to shift between comedy and drama fairly smoothly, only rarely pushing too far in one direction enough to dull the impact of the other.

Also, not for nothing, but the film includes two of the most outrageous and mortifying nude scenes I have ever seen and that alone would keep this film in my mind forever.
Review by StephenFurda ★★★★½

A delightful, endlessly engaging exemplar of a specific kind of comedic filmmaking. Rich with political subtext and subtle, aching emotion, and bolstered by a preternatural understanding of character-based humor, Toni Erdmann manages to consistently catch the audience off-guard with its balance between quirky setpieces and wholly genuine moments of humility and warmth (the Whitney Houston sequence is astounding). Maren Ade's direction is somewhat conventional, but only to better serve the supreme confidence of her script, which fleshes out these characters and builds slowly and beautifully to its terrific climactic sequence. I love the way the film shifts its focus from Winfried to Ines; the context of Winfried's home life is integral to making the rest of the film work, as…
Review by ggmooga ★★★★★

No matter what I always cry disgustingly when she sings Whitney Houston. This film talks a lot about what it's like to lose yourself in just trying to operate as a modern woman while also trying to suppress your inner 10yr old weirdo girl. Makes me want a big, furry hug
Review by Sawyer Paul ★★★

I had no idea how much I needed three hours of Mick Foley trying to cheer up Vince McMahon using Mr Socko.
Review by joelblackledge ★★★★★

First time I saw this was in the packed-out Embankment screen at London Film Festival. Second time was at a friend's house, and it's a very powerful thing to share with your loved ones.
Review by Boratfan6969 ★★★½

I was not high when I watched this movie.
Review by Vejay Nair ★★★★½ 1

Digital Copy
Review by walshap ★★★★★

Blew me away. People trying to stay connected or learn how to connect in the most crazy ways. Very unique. So nice to see this kind of film with such a different creativity. Top notch acting by the leading characters. Didn’t want this film to end. Enjoy
Review by Gokomodogo

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

Sin saber nada pensaba que sería una película sobre una mujer que ve a un monstruo imaginario llamado Toni Erdmann, no que apareciese un disfraz de Kukeri tal cual.