Film: "Toni Erdmann"
An Oscar-nominated screwball comedy about a prankster father and his corporate daughter.
An audacious twist on the screwball comedy—here, the twosome is an aging hippie prankster father and his corporate ladder-climbing daughter—Toni Erdmann delivers art and entertainment in equal measure and charmed everyone who saw it at the Telluride Film Festival this year. Maren Ade’s direction is designed to liberate the actors as much as possible and her dazzling script has just enough of a classical comedic structure to support the parade of surprises.
The greatest one is that beneath the slapstick there is a provocative commentary on gender expectations, where the ridiculous Toni is given more respect than his serious, ambitious daughter simply because he is a man. This Oscar Nominee for Best Foreign Language Film is a complex delight that will leave the audience suspended between laughter and tears. D: Maren Ade, Germany, subtitled, 2016, 2h 42m
