Daddy Dearest

TONI ERDMANN (A-minus) - German comedies tend to be rare, and what writer-director Maren Ade has crafted here is a rather profound study of a father-daughter relationship. If "Manchester by the Sea" was the funniest drama of 2016, then "Toni Erdmann" is the most dramatic comedy of the year.

Ines Conradi (Sandra Hueller), a high-powered consultant to the oil industry, currently posted in Romania. When she pops back home to Germany for a visit, she struggles to connect with her parents and friends, distracted by work calls and just, generally, seeming cold to the touch. In an echo of "Up in the Air," Ines' main task involves carrying out an outsourcing plan without making it look like the company intends to do such a thing.

Her father, Winfried (Peter Simonischeck), aches to connect with his daughter. He is an inveterate prankster (lamely trying to scam a package-delivery person in the opening scene) who has a thing for alternate personalities. On a whim, he travels to Bucharest to surprise Ines and work on that bonding thing. She essentially shrugs him off, embarrassed in front of her colleagues. Winfried rises to the challenge, and he invents a new personality, Toni Erdmann, a brash businessman who finds some success in charming a few of those colleagues. Winfried/Toni wears an awful mop of a dark wig and a set of grotesque fake teeth that he always keeps at the ready in his breast pocket.

In this way, he weasels his way into his daughter's life, trying her patience and ratcheting up her anxiety levels during a critical phase in her career. Toni is like the well-meaning wacky uncle who is more of a nuisance than a source of enjoyment. (I was reminded of a William Steig New Yorker cartoon from decades ago -- I can't find it -- captioned "The Relentless Joker.") Simonischeck is alternatively amusing and heartbreaking in his portrayal of a man longing to feel his daughter's affection. He gets the same mischievous look in his eyes every time he reaches into that breast pocket for his comic prop. He's a hulking presence with the soul of a leprechaun. He has a charisma that draws people to him, something his daughter sorely lacks, even though she's the one who needs that trait the most.

Hueller, however, is the heart and soul of the film. Just like the 2015 film "Carol" could easily have been called "Therese" because Rooney Mara's character was the true core of that period drama, this title is a bit of a misdirection. This is Ines' film through and through. It is at-times the harrowing tale of a woman in her 30s striving to succeed in a cutthroat business world. Thankfully, there is little trite bleating about needing a man or a baby or trying to "have it all." Ines does have a romantic outlet -- if you can call it that -- which plays out more like a typical CEO power-tripping with an escort. (She is equally frustrated in her career and personal life.)

Hueller handles two scenes in particular masterfully. At one point, together on a business trip, father and daughter take a detour to a local woman's home where they are celebrating Easter. Toni spots a keyboard and coerces his daughter into singing Whitney's Houston's "The Greatest Love of All" (see below), and you get the sense that this is a callback to her youth, perhaps one of those elusive bonding moments from long ago. It's the only moment in which she gives in to her father's playfulness.

Eventually back at her flat, Ines has planned a brunch with co-workers to celebrate her birthday. Flustered by her outfit as party time nears, she fitfully strips out of her dress, just as the doorbell rings. She chooses to answer the door naked, surprising her assistant Anca (a delightful Ingrid Bisu) and improvising a surprise theme: a naked team-building exercise. Ines has become a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown, but writer-director Ade (basing it on experiences with her own father) is so deft at nuance -- and having built up these two scenes so gradually -- that we see many layers to Ines. It's tough to place her into any stereotypical category of a career go-getter.

This story unfolds over the course of more than two-and-a-half hours, but the film never drags. Like Kelly Reichardt did with "Certain Women," we come to know two characters that we can imagine existing beyond the running time and outside of the film's frames. We have a hunch about what makes Winfried/Toni tick; but Hueller teases us with idea of what Ines is going through and how her life might end up. She gives a brutal and tantalizing performance that resonates. It is the epitome of storytelling.

BONUS TRACK
Ines singing "The Greatest Love of All":