Toni Erdmann (2016)

TONI ERDMANN  (2016)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Maren Ade
    Sandra Hüller, Peter Simonischek, Michael Wittenborn,
    Thomas Loibl, Trystan Pütter, Ingrid Bisu, Jürg Löw
An Oscar-nominated German comedy about an eccentric schoolteacher, a guy in his 60s, it looks like, who takes a month off and travels to Bucharest, where his daughter has a job with a consulting firm. The daughter is stern, serious, sober and stressed. The father is anything but. He's a clown, a joker, a madman, complete with a ratty-looking wig and false teeth. She's trying to orchestrate a high-end deal with a Romanian oil company, and he's not just getting in the way, he's messing things up. She's keeping it under control, but he's driving her crazy. The movie's about the two of them, and the balance is what makes it interesting. The old man, played by Peter Simonischek (and Jack Nicholson in the upcoming remake), is constantly performing, playing games, acting out in socially questionable ways, and making up preposterous stories just to see how far he can go with them. "Toni Erdmann" is his alter ego, a transparently fake life coach. At one point, he even tries to pass himself off as the German ambassador to Romania. But as the movie goes on, it becomes increasingly clear that the key character isn't the nutjob dad but the no-nonsense daughter (Sandra Hüller), who wears tension like a suit of clothes that's a little too tight, a metaphor that becomes literal late in the film, when her stoic resistance starts to crumble. The scene is a birthday party she's compulsively prepared. All through the movie, you've been watching her, wondering  when and how she's going to crack. When it happens, she doesn't scream or explode. She simply lets go, staying in character while doing something you'd never expect her character to do, and you know that somewhere within her, a seismic shift has occurred. It's a revealing moment in more ways than one.