Ines, who lives in Germany and currently works for a multinational company in Bucharest( romania's capital), has a somewhat awkward relationship with her father, Winfried. Winfried is a funny old man, keen on all kinds of jokes and pranks, and often changes clothes and puts on wigs and dentures, pretending to be a fabricated character named Toni Erdmann. After the death of the only dog who accompanied Winfried, he came to Bucharest to join his daughter.
Workaholic Ines is professional and capable, spending all her time on her career, but the heavy pressure makes her always bored and anxious, and she is often ignored because of her status as a woman, and customers only use her as a guide to accompany her wife on shopping. She was obviously a little confused about her father's arrival, and her father's untimely jokes always embarrassed her, while Winfried looked at her busy daughter with great pain.
The father and daughter did not get along for a few days, and this morning finally broke up after the quarrel, and Seeing the back of his father carrying his luggage away, Ines still couldn't help but cry.
One night, Ines was complaining to his sisters at the bar about the unpleasantness of spending time with his father these days, and before his father could sit behind him, he began to prank and pretend that he was a stranger named Toni Erdmann. In the next few days, his father appeared next to Ines as Toni Erdmann from time to time, talking to Ines's colleagues and friends, and Ines had no choice but to accompany him to continue acting.
Winfried watched her daughter at work fiercely but becoming more and more impersonal, and changed her ways to make her daughter relax and happy. Ines' heart is full of mixed feelings, helpless and angry in the face of his father's sudden troublemaking, embarrassed and embarrassed by his father when he sees the chicken feathers in his work and life, and a little touched when he sees his father by his side.
On this day, Ines was preparing to hold a small party at home, and also took the opportunity to get closer to his colleagues. The embarrassing thing is that the zipper behind the skirt suddenly stuck, and the guest also arrived, a doorbell is urging her to open the door, Ines is anxious, the zipper does not listen to the call, Ines simply took off her clothes, and told the people that it was a "frank meeting" nude party.
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Some people were frightened and fled, and some people believed it and hesitated to take off their clothes to participate. Just as everyone was naked and calmly chatting, a person dressed in a huge black long-haired doll costume suddenly appeared outside the door, which frightened everyone, and everyone thought that Ines had invited the atmosphere to enliven the atmosphere. The black long-haired monster walked around for a while and then left, but Ines put on his clothes and chased after him, watching the back of the black long-haired monster walking alone on the road, Ines stepped forward and hugged him tightly, the father she loved and hated.
In the final scene of the movie, Ines returns to her hometown for her grandmother's funeral, and she chats with her father in the backyard about the past, and then uses his father's dentures to make him happy. But when alone, Ines' expression grew dazed and heavy again.
The film was the highest score in the Cannes media magazine that year, but in the end it did not win an award, and was called the biggest unjust case in Cannes that year. The film portrays a complex and real father-daughter relationship, just like many parent-child relationships in reality, children work far away from home, and they always care for each other for a long time, and the image that was once admired and admired now seems to be disliked everywhere. The ending of the film does not fall into the cliché, although it can get along peacefully, but the deep generation gap between the father and daughter generations cannot be completely eliminated.
At the same time, the film also describes the situation of the heroine in work and life very accurately, even if she is exhausted from scales and injuries, she must put on a suit to do her best, even if she is excellent, she is always ignored and oppressed everywhere, and her random instructions to female subordinates are not another kind of oppression.
The most impressive thing in the movie is that it shoots the embarrassment that can be seen everywhere in people's lives and work, whether it is between father and daughter, or between colleagues, friends, and strangers, the hypocrisy of civilized people hides their inner uneasiness, disgust and other emotions. And this embarrassment is even culminated in the nude party scene, the expression of the crowd is either surprised, or disgusted, or pretending to be calm, but still can maintain the surface of the greeting, which is really wonderful.