Comedy is about breaking the rules, yet it works best following some fundamental formulas. It succeeds when it moves fast; most of the best clock in at a briskly paced 90 minutes. It needs lovable, relatable characters to root for. And it requires an overall sense of quick-witted joy.
The German film "Toni Erdmann," a candidate for this year's best foreign film Oscar, fails all those tests, delivering what is billed as a comedy in the form of an offbeat oddity. Stewarded to the screen by writer/director Maren Ade, the film may have confused academy voters into thinking they were viewing a low-key drama seriously exploring family issues. Rather than setting up jokes, scoring points and swiftly moving on, Ade keeps her shots rolling past the natural beats, hindering what at its core is a road trip comedy _ one that is thinly staged, shot and edited.
While there are no taboos in comedy, being relentlessly glum for a glacial 162 minutes _ that's right, nearly three hours _ comes close. That's a large investment of time in a film with the attitudinal spark of a half-deflated balloon.
The title character is the alter ego of Winfried Conradi (Peter Simonischek), a portly part-time piano teacher. Separated from his wife and rarely in contact with his daughter Ines (Sandra Huller), a hard-charging business consultant living abroad, he's isolated and lonely. He keeps his spirits up by going into his Toni Erdmann persona _ wearing grotesque wigs and goofy dentures, pulling practical jokes and turning conversations with strangers into improvised shaggy dog stories. He plays pranks on his own family, too, telling his aged mother that he's working at the retirement home, scaring shut-ins to death. It's no funnier on-screen than it is in print.
The grim reaper strikes back when Winfried's pet dog dies alongside the departure of his sole music student. The story gets irredeemably muddled as he decides to make a surprise visit to Ines in Romania, where she's deeply focused on trying to land an oil contract.
Trotting out his Erdmann shtick, he tries to rekindle their long-gone connection. He embarrasses Ines in front of her colleagues, drags her into escapades with strangers and tries to rescue her from the buttoned-down world of corporate solemnity. Whether this is a consequence of his own crack-up is anyone's guess.
The film isn't wholly devoid of laughs. Huller makes the poker-faced Ines a latent daddy's girl, gradually dropping her conformism and tapping the lunacy she inherited. She's an apple who has fallen near the tree, then tried to roll away as far as possible.
Her high point arrives when she holds a morale-building party at her apartment and morphs it into a nudist jamboree. Most of her workaholic, politically correct guests reluctantly choose unclad humiliation over offending their hostess. The comedy of awkward, embarrassing discomfort, one of the movie's central themes, is a decent running gag.
Unfortunately, the film makes only limited attempts to stretch itself, challenge the audience or even function. The jokes flop around, gasping for air like a newly landed walleye. Winfried's advice to Ines is predictable _ "Never lose your humor" _ and the film shares precious little.
