Toni Erdmann

Toni Erdmann
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Maren Ade
Produced by	Maren Ade Jonas Dornbach Janine Jackowski Michael Merkt
Written by	Maren Ade
Starring	Peter Simonischek Sandra Hüller Michael Wittenborn Thomas Loibl Trystan Pütter Hadewych Minis Lucy Russell Ingrid Bisu Vlad Ivanov Victoria Cocias
Music by	Patrick Veigel
Cinematography	Patrick Orth
Edited by	Heike Parplies
Production companies	Komplizen Film[1] Coop99 KNM Missing Link Films SWR WDR Arte
Distributed by	NFP Marketing & Distribution (Germany) Enfilade (Austria)
Release dates	14 May 2016 (2016-05-14) (Cannes) 14 July 2016 (2016-07-14) (Germany) 15 July 2016 (2016-07-15) (Austria)
Running time	162 minutes[2]
Country	Germany[1][3] Austria
Language	German English Romanian
Budget	€3 million (USD$3.2 million)
Box office	$7.1 million[4]

Toni Erdmann is a 2016 German-Austrian comedy-drama film directed, written and co-produced by Maren Ade. It stars Peter Simonischek, Sandra Hüller, Michael Wittenborn, Thomas Loibl, Trystan Pütter, Hadewych Minis, Lucy Russell, Ingrid Bisu, Vlad Ivanov and Victoria Cocias.

The film was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival.^[5][6] It was selected as the German submission for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 89th Academy Awards.^[7]

Plot

Winfried Conradi is a divorced music teacher, an old-age hippie of sorts, with a passion for bizarre pranks involving several fake personas. Over the bereavement of his dog, he decides to reconnect with his daughter Ines, who is pursuing a career in business consulting and is currently posted in Bucharest, Romania, where she works on an outsourcing project in the oil industry.

Winfried 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 his wig and fake teeth that he usually wears while playing pranks, and approaches her from the side while hiding behind a newspaper. Ines completely ignores her father, but picks him up in the lobby after her meeting and takes him to a luxurious hotel.

In the evening, Winfried accompanies Ines to an business lounge, where they meet Mr. Henneberg, the oil company's German CEO. While Ines desperately tries to gain Mr. Hennebergs attention, Winfried and Mr. Henneberg easily connect when Winfried tells him that he has now hired a replacement daughter, as his actual daughter is constantly too busy. To Ines' horror, Mr. Henneberg insists that Winfried joins for dinner.

After several days, father and daughter have still not found a connection; instead Winfried is deeply alienated by the life his daughter leads and he apparently departs. However, after several days, when Ines is having dinner with two of her girlfriends, their party is suddenly approached by Winfried, who wears a wig and fake teeth and introduces himself as Mr. Toni Erdmann, business consultant and coach. He starts an exhilarating conversation with the two ladies, who are impressed by his distinct style, worldly manners and alleged connections to Bucharest's business elite. Ines decides to play along and starts exposing her life to "Mr. Erdmann". More and more, Winfried learns that Ines leads a sad and lonely life of excessive career ambitions, anonymous sex and even drug abuse, and he starts to genuinely worry about her.

To cheer her up, Winfried takes Ines to a Easter-Egg painting party of an acquaintance, where he introduces himself as the German ambassador and his daughter as his secretary and assistant, Ms. Schnuck. Upon leaving, Winfried announces that to show their gratitude towards their hosts, they will perform a song and persuades Ines to perform Whitney Houston's Greatest Love of All. Initially timid, Ines' performance becomes more and more aggressive, and she finally rushes off.

Back at her place, Ines is supposed to host a business brunch to celebrate her birthday. When she fails to close the zip of her dress while the doorbell rings, she decides to open the door naked and claims that she'll have a naked brunch, thereby alienating her colleagues and her boss.

Several months later, one learns that Ines has quit her former company and instead joined McKinsey & Company in Singapore.

Cast

• Peter Simonischek as Winfried Conradi / Toni Erdmann
• Sandra Hüller as Ines Conradi
• Lucy Russell as Steph
• Michael Wittenborn as Henneberg
• Thomas Loibl as Gerald
• Trystan Pütter as Tim
• Hadewych Minis as Tatjana
• Ingrid Bisu as Anca
• Vlad Ivanov as Illiescu
• Victoria Cocias as Flavia

Production

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.^[8]

Release

Toni Erdmann had its world premiere at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival.^[5][6] The film was originally accepted into the less prestigious Un Certain Regard section of the 2016 Cannes Film Festival. The night before the press conference in April Ade and her producer received an email that the film had been selected to compete for the Palme d'Or.^[9] Shortly after, Sony Pictures Classics and Soda Pictures acquired U.S, Latin American and UK distribution rights to the film, respectively.^[10][11]

The film went onto screen at the Filmfest München on 23 June 2016.^[12] Sydney Film Festival on 15 June 2016.^[13] Karlovy Vary International Film Festival on 3 July 2016.^[14] Telluride Film Festival on 2 September 2016.^[15] Toronto International Film Festival on 8 September 2016.^[16][17] New York Film Festival on 2 October 2016.^[18][19] and the BFI London Film Festival on 8 October 2016.^[20]

The film was released in Germany on 14 July 2016.^[21] Austria on 15 July 2016.^[22] and in Switzerland on 21 July 2016.^[23] The film is scheduled to be released in the United States on 25 December 2016.^[24]

Critical reception

The film received universal acclaim from critics. It holds a 95% approval rating on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 38 reviews, with an average rating of 8.4/10. The site'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."^[25] On Metacritic, the film holds a rating of 94 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".^[26]

The film was named as the best film of the year by the French magazine Cahiers du cinéma.^[27] The British film magazine Sight & Sound also named Toni Erdmann as the best film of 2016 in its poll of 163 critics worldwide.^[28]

Awards and nominations

Toni Erdmann received the FIPRESCI Award for Best Film In Competition at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival.^[29]

In August 2016, the film won the FIPRESCI (International Federation of Film Critics)'s Grand Prix for best film of the year, and making it the first time this accolade has been awarded to a female filmmaker.^[30][31]

Later that year, in November 2016, the film was awarded the European Parliament's Lux Prize, annually awarded to facilitate the diffusion of European films in the European Union.^[32]

See also

• List of submissions to the 89th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film
• List of German submissions for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film

References

External links

• Official website (German)
• Official website
• Toni Erdmann at the Internet Movie Database
• Toni Erdmann at Box Office Mojo
• Toni Erdmann at Rotten Tomatoes
• Toni Erdmann at Metacritic