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The Films of Maren Ade

The Forest for the Trees

Click here for review.

Everyone Else

Toni Erdmann (December 5/16)

Written and directed by Maren Ade, Toni Erdmann follows lonely retiree Winfried Conradi (Peter Simonischek) as he sets out to improve his workaholic daughter's (Sandra Hüller's Ines) life by adopting the guise of a goofy, invasive "life coach" named Toni - with the movie detailing the degree to which Winfried's consistent (and, initially, unwelcome) appearances impact Ines' personal and professional lives. There's little doubt that Toni Erdmann fares best in its opening stretch, as filmmaker Ade effectively (and efficiently) establishes the two central characters and their somewhat strained relationship - with the promising atmosphere heightened by Simonischek and Hüller's stirring work as the story's seriously flawed protagonists. It's clear even during this portion of the proceedings, however, that Ade's less-than-urgent approach is problematic, to put it mildly, as the movie's 162 minutes (!) ensures that the narrative is rife with sequences that are either overlong or flat-out unnecessary - with this proving especially apparent during the movie's flabby, momentum-free midsection. The often aggressively meandering atmosphere prevents the viewer from working up much interest in or enthusiasm for the central characters' exploits, of course, and it does, as a result, become awfully difficult to embrace many of the interludes that dominate the movie's second half (eg a somewhat interminable scene set in a loud nightclub). And although Ade does manage to pepper the third act with a few compelling moments (eg a decidedly risque dinner party), Toni Erdmann, saddled with a storyline that is, at its heart, fairly conventional, ultimately finds its various positive attributes rendered moot in the face of a needlessly, obnoxiously epic running time.

out of

© David Nusair