You have to be incredibly relaxed to use a cheese grater right.

Toni Erdmann

(2016)

(SPOILERS) It’s easy to see why Maren Ade’s rambling, rumpled – it rather resembles its protagonist in form – tragi-comedy was instantly snapped up by Hollywood (or more especially by Jack Nicholson, promising to come out of retirement for a golden role; we shall see…), as, with a few minor tweaks and a directive to over- rather than underplay, it bears all the hallmarks of a classic uplifting Hollywood narrative. I’m not sure I buy into its miraculous hype, however (including a Best Foreign Film Oscar nomination and Sight & Sound’s best film of 2016). The performances in Toni Erdmann are top notch, the scenarios often funny, sad, excruciating, but it’s also content to meander and overly devotes itself to the idea that vérité equates to depth.

The S&S synopsis summarised the picture thus: “A shambling baby boomer pushes his high-achieving daughter’s buttons with a series of increasingly bizarre practical jokes”. Which makes it sound like it would have been ideal for Robin Williams. But suggesting Winfried Conradi (Peter Simonischek) is so calculated is to falsely present the picture. His guise as Toni Erdmann is as improvised and unstructured as Ade’s directorial style, and his jokes often come nowhere near to paying off – commonly amounting to little more than his ever-ready upper dentures, a brunette wig and announcing himself as variously a life coach or the German Ambassador to Romania. Indeed, Ade resists so consistently the opportunity for a cathartic comic set piece (Winfried puts the corporate machine in its place! Winfried humiliates the priapic boyfriend!) that you can practically see the Tinseltown hacks salivating at the potential.

That’s because the essential arc is that of your classic big screen comedy; free-spirited parent imposes himself on his uptight, emotionally-sterile daughter’s life with hilarious and meaningful results. Add in the disguise aspect, albeit not even remotely fooling anyone who knows – the most mirthful results come at the outset, when Winfried poses as his twin brother for the postie, speaking enthusiastically about the mail bomb he’s just received and can’t wait to defuse – and you have potential for schmaltz-heavy sentiment and Mrs Doubtfire hijinks.

Toni Erdmann doesn’t play that way, and resists the easy fix/resolution. Winfried is no paragon of virtue; in many respects, he’s just as lost as his daughter, only with a less overtly debilitating approach to how he deals with it. But still, his wife left him for reasons that don’t need spelling out, his best friend is his on-his-last-legs dog, and with an approach of always being “on”, it isn’t hard to see why even moderate and well-rounded offspring would have reservations about spending swathes of time with him.

Ines Conradi (Sandra Huller) is a consultant advising the oil industry on downsizing, so a combination of turn-offs right there. She entirely goes with the get-ahead flow, soullessly giving her assistant (who hangs on her every instruction, and even found Ines’ apartment for her) performance tips. And as much as she may know her job, her iciness inevitably backfires when trying to impress, particularly with her father hanging on. He’s already told the CEO (Michael Wittenborn) she’s attempting to get on board that he has hired a substitute daughter (later, when Ines attempts to ditch dad for drinks with the CEO, the latter scolds her attitude). She feigns concern for Winfred being ditched while she spends hours shopping with the CEO’s wife (“Are you really a human?” he responds) and proceeds to scornfully dismiss the loss of his beloved pet to friends (only to find her father sitting at the bar next to her).

But something of him begins to work its way into her psyche. “Toni” has struck a chord, such that, even though she can accuse her father of being as lacking in perspective as she (“Do you have plans in life, other than slipping far cushions under people”: “I don’t have a fart cushion”), she can’t help laughing a few scenes later when her father, on a bench, interrupts her boss with an explosive outburst (“Did he just fart?”)

Ines slow breakdown manifests in increasingly bewildering/humorous fashion (and from the first, we can see she’s her father’s daughter, matching him for cutting ripostes – “Great. She can call you on your birthday so I don’t have to” is her reaction to “news” of his substitute daughter), instructing her colleague/lover to ejaculate on a petit-four (which she proceeds to consume) and her outpouring of emotion in song – under pressure from Toni, for whom she is posing as his assistant – in a manner she cannot otherwise express.

The slowly poisonous consequences of a job in which she is causing others misery and destitution hits home when Toni takes issue with the sacking of an employee as a result of a joke remark he made. She dismisses his “green” attitude and conciliatory gestures (“I can’t believe you told them not to lose their humour”), leading to her alarming/hilarious meltdown decision to turned her birthday into a “naked party”. At which Winfried also appears, dressed as a Bulgarian kukeri (I assumed it was a yeti) leading to her heartfelt hugging of her hirsute father.

It’s appropriate that there’s no upbeat resolution to Toni Erdmann, though. Ines hasn’t left her job; rather, she’s sidestepped from Bucharest to Singapore. Toni may have reconnected with her, but his world is one of increasing isolation (his dog and then his mother die), and he finds himself contemplating how the precious moments can only be perceived with hindsight. His life, and ours, are “so often about getting things done”. So yeah, put a positive spin on that, and it could be a goldmine. Let’s face it, there isn’t much depth to its critique of globalisation (it hurts people, and you most of all when you go along with it), so that could probably stay as is. And when Jack drops out, perhaps find someone who more approximates Simmonischek’s bearish gait – Ron Perlman springs to mind. Also, honing the material a touch would do no harm either.

Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.

The Illumi-what-i?

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) (SPOILERS) In which Sam Raimi proves that he can stand proudly with the best – or worst – of them as a good little foot soldier of the woke apocalypse. You’d expect the wilfully anarchic – and Republican – Raimi to choke on the woke, but instead, he’s sucked it up, grinned and bore it. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is so slavishly a production-line Marvel movie, both in plotting and character, and in nu-Feige progressive sensibilities, there was no chance of Sam staggering out from beneath its suffocating demands with anything more than a few scraps of stylistic flourish intact.

This risotto is shmackin’, dude.

Stranger Things Season 4: Volume 1 (SPOILERS) I haven’t had cause, or the urge, to revisit earlier seasons of Stranger Things , but I’m fairly certain my (relatively) positive takes on the first two sequel seasons would adjust down somewhat if I did (a Soviet base under Hawkins? DUMB soft disclosure or not, it’s pretty dumb). In my Season Three review, I called the show “ Netflix’s best-packaged junk food. It knows not to outstay its welcome, doesn’t cause bloat and is disposable in mostly good ways ” I fairly certain the Duffer’s weren’t reading, but it’s as if they decided, as a rebuke, that bloat was the only way to go for Season Four. Hence episodes approaching (or exceeding) twice the standard length. So while the other points – that it wouldn’t stray from its cosy identity and seasons tend to merge in the memory – hold fast, you can feel the ambition of an expansive canvas faltering at the hurdle of Stranger Things ’ essential, curated, nostalgia-appeal inconsequentiality.

Haven’t you ever heard of the healing power of laughter?

Batman (1989) (SPOILERS) There’s Jaws , there’s Star Wars , and then there’s Batman in terms of defining the modern blockbuster. Jaws ’ success was so profound, it changed the way movies were made and marketed. Batman’s marketing was so profound, it changed the way tentpoles would be perceived: as cash cows. Disney tried to reproduce the effect the following year with Dick Tracy , to markedly less enthusiastic response. None of this places Batman in the company of Jaws as a classic movie sold well, far from it. It just so happened to hit the spot. As Tim Burton put it, it was “ more of a cultural phenomenon than a great movie ”. It’s difficult to disagree with his verdict that the finished product (for that is what it is) is “ mainly boring ”. Now, of course, the Burton bat has been usurped by the Nolan incarnation (and soon the Snyder). They have some things in common. Both take the character seriously and favour a sombre tone, which was much more of shock to the

Is this supposed to be me? It’s grotesque.

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent (2022) (SPOILERS) I didn’t hold out much hope for The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent being more than moderately tolerable. Not so much because its relatively untested director and his co-writer are mostly known in the TV sphere (and not so much for anything anyone is raving about). Although, it has to be admitted, the finished movie flourishes a degree of digital flatness typical of small-screen productions (it’s fine, but nothing more). Rather, due to the already over-tapped meta-strain of celebs showing they’re good sports about themselves. When Spike Jonze did it with John Malkovich, it was weird and different. By the time we had JCVD , not so much. And both of them are pre-dated by Arnie in Last Action Hero (“ You brought me nothing but pain ” he is told by Jack Slater). Plus, it isn’t as if Tom Gormican and Kevin Etten have much in the way of an angle on Nic; the movie’s basically there to glorify “him”, give or take a few foibles, do

All the world will be your enemy, Prince with a Thousand Enemies.

Watership Down (1978) (SPOILERS) I only read Watership Down recently, despite having loved the film from the first, and I was immediately impressed with how faithful, albeit inevitably compacted, Martin Rosen’s adaptation is. It manages to translate the lyrical, mythic and metaphysical qualities of Richard Adams’ novel without succumbing to dumbing down or the urge to cater for a broader or younger audience. It may be true that parents are the ones who get most concerned over the more disturbing elements of the picture but, given the maturity of the content, it remains a surprise that, as with 2001: A Space Odyssey (which may on the face of it seem like an odd bedfellow), this doesn’t garner a PG certificate. As the makers noted, Watership Down is at least in part an Exodus story, but the biblical implications extend beyond Hazel merely leading his fluffle to the titular promised land. There is a prevalent spiritual dimension to this rabbit universe, one very much

What’s so bad about being small? You’re not going to be small forever.

Innerspace (1987) There’s no doubt that Innerspace is a flawed movie. Joe Dante finds himself pulling in different directions, his instincts for comic subversion tempered by the need to play the romance plot straight. He tacitly acknowledges this on the DVD commentary for the film, where he notes Pauline Kael’s criticism that he was attempting to make a mainstream movie; and he was. But, as ever with Dante, it never quite turns out that way. Whereas his kids’ movies treat their protagonists earnestly, this doesn’t come so naturally with adults. I’m a bona fide devotee of Innerspace , but I can’t help but be conscious of its problems. For the most part Dante papers over the cracks; the movie hits certain keynotes of standard Hollywood prescription scripting. But his sensibility inevitably suffuses it. That, and human cartoon Martin Short (an ideal “leading man” for the director) ensure what is, at first glance just another “ Steven Spielberg Presents ” sci-fi/fantas

Twenty dwarves took turns doing handstands on the carpet.

Bugsy (1991) (SPOILERS) Bugsy is very much a Warren Beatty vanity project (aren’t they all, even the ones that don’t seem that way on the surface?), to the extent of his playing a title character a decade and a half younger than him. As such, it makes sense that producer Warren’s choice of director wouldn’t be inclined to overshadow star Warren, but the effect is to end up with a movie that, for all its considerable merits (including a script from James Toback chock full of incident), never really feels quite focussed, that it’s destined to lead anywhere, even if we know where it’s going.

Whacking. I'm hell at whacking.

Witness (1985) (SPOILERS) Witness saw the advent of a relatively brief period – just over half a decade –during which Harrison Ford was willing to use his star power in an attempt to branch out. The results were mixed, and abruptly concluded when his typically too late to go where Daniel Day Lewis, Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro had gone before (with at bare minimum Oscar-nominated results) – but not “ full retard ” – ended in derision with Regarding Henry . He retreated to the world of Tom Clancy, and it’s the point where his cachet began to crumble. There had always been a stolid quality beneath even his more colourful characters, but now it came to the fore. You can see something of that as John Book in Witness – despite his sole Oscar nom, it might be one of Ford’s least interesting performances of the 80s – but it scarcely matters, or that the screenplay (which won) is by turns nostalgic, reactionary, wistful and formulaic, as director Peter Weir, in his Hollywood debu

Get away from my burro!

The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948) (SPOILERS) The Treasure of the Sierra Madre is beloved by so many of the cinematic firmament’s luminaries – Stanley Kubrick, Sam Raimi, , Paul Thomas Anderson and who knows maybe also WS, Vince Gilligan, Spike Lee, Daniel Day Lewis; Oliver Stone was going to remake it – not to mention those anteriorly influential Stone Roses, that it seems foolhardy to suggest it isn’t quite all that. There’s no faulting the performances – a career best Humphrey Bogart, with director John Huston’s dad Walter stealing the movie from under him – but the greed-is-bad theme is laid on a little thick, just in case you were a bit too dim to get it yourself the first time, and Huston’s direction may be right there were it counts for the dramatics, but it’s a little too relaxed when it comes to showing the seams between Mexican location and studio.

If that small woman is small enough, she could fit behind a small tree.

Stranger Things Season 4: Volume 2 (SPOILERS) I can’t quite find it within myself to perform the rapturous somersaults that seem to be the prevailing response to this fourth run of the show. I’ve outlined some of my thematic issues in the Volume 1 review, largely borne out here, but the greater concern is one I’ve held since Season Two began – and this is the best run since Season One, at least as far my failing memory can account for – and that’s the purpose-built formula dictated by the Duffer Brothers. It’s there in each new Big Bad, obviously, even to the extent that this is the Big-Bad-who-binds-them-all (except the Upside Down was always there, right?) And it’s there with the resurgent emotional beats, partings, reunions and plaintively stirring music cues. I have to be really on board with a movie or show to embrace such flagrantly shameless manipulation, season after season, and I find myself increasingly immune.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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