Funny things come in strange packages

crafting this film is creating a fully realized portrait of a modern woman in the workplace, with a sly sideline on work in general. When a male colleague worries about “offending your feminism,” she snaps back: “I’m not a feminist or I wouldn’t tolerate guys like you.” (Stupidly, he takes that as a compliment.)

Ines is a fascinating character. Her gregarious father, even when not in character, cuts a loose and shambolic figure. In contrast, she is tense and curt, and seldom smiles. Her suits seem to pinch her bony figure, as though her wardrobe, maybe even her skin, is a half-size too small. It’s almost natural that at one point she ditches the clothes, greeting guests to a gathering at her apartment in the altogether and declaring it a “nackte partei.”

This revelatory behaviour occurs late in the film, after Toni Erdmann’s comportment has broken through some of her inhibitions. The zenith of this leap forward is when Ines belts out Whitney Houston’s The Greatest Love of All at the behest of her dad, a scene that had hardened critics breaking into applause at the world première last year in Cannes. It has to be seen, and heard, to be believed.

But a film is more than one great moment, however much it may live in that scene’s shadow. Toni Erdmann satirizes the superiority Western Europeans feel over their neighbours. (“I like countries with a middle class,” says the young, blond wife of a CEO. “They relax me.”) It has important things to say about how one culture can be foisted on another in the name of globalization or efficiency. And it introduces Kukeri, a mythical Bulgarian creature that looks like a wet Wookiee having a bad hair day.

It also crafts a wistful portrayal of a father-daughter friendship. “How are we supposed to hang on to moments?” Winfried asks in a rare instance of being serious that nonetheless matches all his goofy ones. And then: “I’ll get my camera.” That’s one way. This film is another. Don’t let it get away. ΩΩΩΩ