Toni Erdmann: reviews

What the critics say average 9.6 from 14

• 10 Los Angeles TimesJustin Chang Ade has an unusual gift for planting more than one idea in each frame; I don?t think there?s a single one of the movie?s 162 minutes that can be reduced to a single emotional beat or narrative function. That hefty running time isn?t a sign of indulgence, but integrity. Read
• 10 The TelegraphRobbie Collin Sweetness and bitterness of the film are held so perfectly in balance. Read
• 10 CinemaníaAndrea G. Bermejo The confusion that the director Maren Ade succeeds in this climbing of jokes of almost three hours of duration hides, deep down, a depth that we would never have attributed to the toy handcuffs or naked parties. Read
• 10 Cahiers du CinémaStéphane Delorme The triumph at Cannes, which must not make believe a consensual film, was simply the shock of seeing a masterpiece. Read
• 10 Roger EbertSusan Wloszczyna [Maren Ade] fully embraces the inherent awkwardness of a testy emotional bond and tackles it to the ground, all the while mining it for heartfelt humor without the all-too-common safety net of predictability found in big-budget Hollywood fare. Read
• 10 New York TimesA.O. Scott 'Toni Erdmann', proceeding in a perfectly straightforward manner, from one awkward, heartfelt, hilarious scene to the next, wraps itself around some of the thorniest complexities of contemporary reality. Read
• 10 FotogramasPhilipp Engel A delightfully uncomfortable mood that can remind the spirit of the sketches [...] between the most explosive comedy and the most rigorous German realism. Read
• 10 El MundoLuis Martínez It turns the absurd into delight. [...] A comedy as extravagant as existentially painful. [...] original and risky. Read
• 10 El PaísCarlos Boyero It is an unusual comedy in the best sense, inhabited by splendid gags and situations that provoke laughter [...] mixing realism and surrealism, grotesque and buried tenderness. Read
• 9.1 The PlaylistJessica Kiang Every family is its own country with culture and customs and embarrassments that seem alien beyond its borders, but the genius of Maren Ade?s brilliantly funny and slyly crushing 'Toni Erdmann' is that it makes the utterly foreign nation of its central father/daughter relationship feel so much like home. Read
• 9.0 ClarinPablo O. Scholz When it seems that the comedy is going to give rise to the drama, or clashing in clichés, the director of 'Everyone Else' [...] hits the spotlight from the script and makes the characters are adorable. Read
• 8.8 Rolling StonePeter Travers If you're looking for the best and most beguiling foreign-language film of the year, you'll find it in Maren Ade's 'Toni Erdmann', a German father-daughter story that will leave you laughing and choking back tears, often simultaneously. Read
• 8.8 Le MondeJacques Mandelbaum Around filiation, the German director Maren Ade offers, with 'Toni Erdmann', an invigorating situationist farce. Read
• 8.0 The GuardianPeter Bradshaw A leftfield Palme contender emerges in this insightful and sometimes very funny film about a prank-prone dad trying to lighten up his serious businesswoman daughter. Read