Toni Erdmann

Writer-director Maren Ads scores an international hit with "Tony Erdmann," a father-daughter comedy in which a fun-loving older man with a weakness for really lame pranks (Peter Simonischek) worries that his career-minded daughter (Sandra H�ller) is sinking into hard-shelled melancholy. To save her from herself, he follows his daughter to Bucharest and sets about interjecting himself, with court jester-like impunity, into her personal and work situations.

The film itself is a stellar cinematic achievement, by turns riddled with tension, loose-limbed and satirical, and even a bit sexy -- though in a biting, absurdist way that doesn't feel gratuitous, despite some nudity and one fairly explicit sexual encounter involving an ill-fated petite-four.

The DVD release contains the film (in all its unedited glory), an audio commentary track featuring H�ller and Simonischek, as well as producer Janine Jackowski, and red carpet interviews and a Q&A with the film's cast members and producers at AFI fest.

The audio commentary is full of the usual production anecdotes -- "We filmed here for three days, we had lots of extras in full hair and makeup," that sort of thing -- but also some pretty funny bits, as when one commentator references the phrase "Nasty woman" and the other (evidently not having followed the vitriolic 2016 election) responds with puzzlement.

Elsewhere, the cast discuss the "real plastic hair" of the ridiculous wig Simonischek wears throughout the movie. It's as earnest and yet as droll as the movie itself, which is more or less a way of describing most German comedy.

Do you need this movie in your home collection? Fans of European (particularly German) cinema surely do, as do enthusiasts for the vision of woman directors. Though the DVD transfer is done at a sufficiently high resolution that the image doesn't unduly suffer when viewed on a Blu-ray player and a hi-def television, the subtitles are done in a clunky font that the DVD's resolution only accentuates. Go for the Blu-ray release instead, and enjoy the film at peak vibrancy.

"Toni Erdmann"
DVD
$26.99
http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/tonierdmann