I am a fan of independent quirky comedy (Night on Earth and Down by Law, for example, or in a more similar vein to Toni Erdmann, von Trier's The Boss of It All).
I went into Toni Erdmann expecting something like that.
What I got instead was a film that was less than the sum of its parts, with awkward, stilted pacing (possibly intentionally), and really variations of one slapstick joke being repeated over and over again.
It's not that it's not funny, there are quite a few good laughs there, and it's not that the main character's attempts to reconnect with his daughter are not charming. It's just that those good elements are diluted in many scenes where one or both of the main characters were surrounded by a bunch of other actors just feeling awkward and not knowing what to do with the main characters (repetitive and increasingly unfunny) shenanigans. It just felt like bad film-craft, with really poor chemistry between the actors most of the time.
Another thing is (I will spare you the details) the completely gratuitous scenes with sexual content and nudity, which just seemed out of place within the rest of the film, and were there (in my view) just to make the film seem more edgy and challenging. Nothing wrong with edgy and challenging, and nothing wrong with nudity in principle, it's just that these scenes did not work with the rest of the film at all and were far too long, and far too detailed, and one of them did not contribute to the plot at all.
In the end, the director's self-indulgence and the lack of chemistry between the two main actors and the rest of the cast just makes it feel like an excuse to put the main character in increasingly unlikely and increasingly awkward situations, that he responds to by playing cheesy gags. You end up losing interest in the characters, and feeling the film is far too long (well, at least that was my subjective experience).
I went into Toni Erdmann expecting something like that.
What I got instead was a film that was less than the sum of its parts, with awkward, stilted pacing (possibly intentionally), and really variations of one slapstick joke being repeated over and over again.
It's not that it's not funny, there are quite a few good laughs there, and it's not that the main character's attempts to reconnect with his daughter are not charming. It's just that those good elements are diluted in many scenes where one or both of the main characters were surrounded by a bunch of other actors just feeling awkward and not knowing what to do with the main characters (repetitive and increasingly unfunny) shenanigans. It just felt like bad film-craft, with really poor chemistry between the actors most of the time.
Another thing is (I will spare you the details) the completely gratuitous scenes with sexual content and nudity, which just seemed out of place within the rest of the film, and were there (in my view) just to make the film seem more edgy and challenging. Nothing wrong with edgy and challenging, and nothing wrong with nudity in principle, it's just that these scenes did not work with the rest of the film at all and were far too long, and far too detailed, and one of them did not contribute to the plot at all.
In the end, the director's self-indulgence and the lack of chemistry between the two main actors and the rest of the cast just makes it feel like an excuse to put the main character in increasingly unlikely and increasingly awkward situations, that he responds to by playing cheesy gags. You end up losing interest in the characters, and feeling the film is far too long (well, at least that was my subjective experience).