- dir. MAREN ADE
- year. 2016
- country. GERMANY
- run time. 162 mins
- rating. 15
£5.00 (£3.50 conc.)
For Father's Day weekend we've decided on an alternative, not entirely celebratory program of films about fatherhood. Four great films across two days. We've called our short season Binge: DADS. Join us as we immerse ourselves in the cinema of fathers...
TONI ERDMANN
Winfried doesn’t see much of his hard working daughter Ines. The suddenly student-less music teacher decides to surprise her with a visit after the death of his old dog. It’s an awkward move because serious career woman Ines is working on an important project as a corporate strategist in Bucharest. The geographical change doesn’t help the two to see more eye to eye. Practical joker Winfried loves to annoy his daughter with corny pranks. Even worse are his little jabs at her routine lifestyle of long meetings, hotel bars and performance reports. Father and daughter reach an impasse, and Winfried agrees to return home to Germany.
Enter ashy Toni Erdmann, Winfried’s smooth-talking alter ego. Disguised in a tacky suit, weird wig and even weirder fake teeth, Toni barges into Ines’ professional life, claiming to be her CEO’s life coach. As Toni, Winfried is bolder and doesn’t hold back, but Ines meets the challenge. The harder they push, the closer they become, and in all the madness, Ines slowly begins to understand that her eccentric father might deserve a place in her life after all.
“surreal and screamingly funny, but also a tender dissection of their relationship”
“strange, delightful and dementedly funny [-] a film that plays first as comedy, then as tragedy”
“‘This will not be a comedy,’ Ade reportedly told her co-producer. ‘This will be a very long and sad film.’ In fact, it is both and more.”
“An extravagant and incisive comedy that has a lucidity so amusing that, in fact, hurts”