Toni Erdmann

Winfried is a retired music teacher who cannot stop playing jokes. His daughter Ines works for a consultancy in Bucharest, planning redundancies at an oil company. He turns up unannounced, stays a few days, pretends to leave and comes back in false teeth and a wig. He introduces himself as Toni Erdmann, a life coach, and works his way into her professional circle. Ines does not expose him, and the game turns into something that could go on for months. Maren Ade wrote and directed. Peter Simonischek plays Winfried and Sandra Huller plays Ines. Ade worked on the film for about five years and had two children in that time. The most discussed scene has Ines singing Whitney Houston's The Greatest Love of All at a Romanian family's Easter gathering. Ade was direct about what she wanted from it: Ines had to sing the song as though she did not want to sing it, so that the way of singing would itself be an obscenity. At the 2016 Cannes Film Festival it drew the best reviews of anything in competition and the jury gave it nothing. It did take the International Critics' prize and the FIPRESCI Grand Prix, which no woman director had won in eighteen editions. Who it is for: viewers who like long, uncomfortable and genuinely funny films. Who it is not for: anyone short on patience. It runs close to three hours and most of the jokes are stretched out on purpose.