It’s Not a Joke: SPC Isn’t Monkeying Around with Palme d’Or Favorite “Toni Erdmann”

Sony Pictures Classics might have nabbed this year’s Palme d’Or winner. Of course, time (a little less than a week) will tell if Maren Ade‘s Toni Erdmann is crowned by the jury, but one thing is for sure, the film starring the memorable twosome Peter Simonischek and Sandra Hüller will be a highly coveted title for North American film fests and will likely land Best Foreign title considerations for international award shows.

Gist: Practical joker Winfried (Simonischek) disguises himself as flashy “Toni Erdmann” to get busy Ines’ (Hüller) attention and change her corporate lifestyle. The father-daughter challenge reaches absurd proportions until Ines begins to see that her eccentric father deserves a place in her life.

Worth Noting: Ade has been a producer on Miguel Gomes’ output (five feature films in all).

Do We Care?: Currently in the “lead” for best critically acclaimed film in Cannes by our Cannes Critics’ Panel, in our Nicholas Bell’s ★★★★½ review claims that this is “spectacularly engrossing and emotionally generous, the near three hour venture sounds slight when described, as it details a retired German music teacher and his idiosyncratic method of trying to reconnect with his distant daughter, a woman scrambling to climb the corporate ladder in a consulting firm in Bucharest. Instead, sequences, which more or less end up being a series of increasingly oddball sketches where father and daughter formulate a rather distinctive method of communication build efficiently and energetically into a formidable testament of its director/writer’s skills.”