It’s truly rare to see a genuine relationship between father and daughter on film. Several storytellers have tried in recent years, in movies such as The Descendants (2011), Amelie (2000), and Noah (2014), but more often than not, the father figure is often viewed as hapless or finally, the hero, much like in the charming remake of Father of The Bride (1991), and every small child’s fantasy, A Little Princess (1995), and all its incarnations.
Even My So Called Life tried to depict an honest relationship on television, but more often than not, the father figure is viewed as hapless, or finally, the hero. In most ways, these films are about a father learning to let go. However, writer and director of Toni Erdmann, Maren Ade, is about reconnecting in adulthood and perhaps experiencing each other as real, complex humans for the first time, instead of stereotypical roles.
“We rehearsed for a full year” Sandra Huller explained. Perhaps that’s why the tension between her and her father, Winifried, played by the famous German actor, Peter Simonischek is so palpable. Sandra’s character, Ines, is an international business woman in Romania and is good at her job as a strict consultant. However, even the word consultant informs employees that their jobs are in danger, and their office is downsizing or even merging. Her job isn’t easy. Her father, who has just lost his dog and is feeling his age, arrives in town unexpectedly and throws Sandra’s usually disciplined life out of order. She’s outwardly successful and high functioning, but seeing her Dad again makes her feel like an uncomfortable child, squirming in her own skin.
Winifried, a divorced, affable piano teacher is obviously from another generation and is portrayed as a literal clown, as he often volunteers to dress up in fake teeth and wigs to cheer up the elderly in hospitals and elder care homes in his neighborhood in Germany. When he shows up in Romania in this persona, his collected daughter is mortified. She has enough of a fight fitting in with stereotypical corporate men in her own world and the last thing she needs is an embarrassing, shambling dad undermining her hard won authority. After several uncomfortable encounters, they agree that her father should return home as she has no room for this fool in her life. However, unbeknownst to his only child, he remains there and takes on a new persona he just invented for himself, named Toni Erdmann. As Erdmann, he’s able to effortlessly introduce himself as a “life coach” and his charm, and the fact that he’s an old white man, gives him easy entry to his daughter’s corporate circle. It is not lost on his daughter how much senselessly “Toni” is immediately accepted as an eccentric business man, when she has tried to maintain an intelligent, capable, serious minded career woman all her life.
Shot in Bucharest in three months, Huller called the director of photography, Patrick Drittenpreis, “a hero,” as he worked with a forty pound camera on his shoulder for the entire time, to capture their frazzled relationship. For over fifty six shots and often fifteen takes per scene, the acting is imperceptible as Drittenpreis documents the minute frustrations of every day life. In fact he and director Ade made the working environment so safe and comfortable, that Huller’s biggest challenge during the shoot was not lengthy nude scenes, but “getting her work presentation and business language believable as a convincing corporate leader.”
Germany’s entry in this year’s Oscar race cannot simply be distilled, as like much of life, the movie goer has to experience the wonderful push ad pull of this complex dynamic on their own. Instead of often banal, familiar characterizations, the story allows father and daughter to truly emotionally battle, play passive aggressive games, and endure the carelessness typical of close, difficult, but necessary relationships. In the end, what Maren Ade and her cast and crew have given us is a manual of hope.
