'Fatherland' would be the German actor's finest turn at any point — but it's simply one more landmark in a truly banner Hüller year

The woman seems so calm, so cool, until the slap. For the bulk of Fatherland, the latest film from Oscar-winning Polish filmmaker Pawel Palikowski ( Ida, Cold War ), Sandra Hüller is the human pillar of the movie. In real life, her character Erika Mann was a war journalist, a racecar driver and, like Hüller, an actor. In Palikowski’s movie, she’s the chauffeur and caretaker of her father Thomas Mann, as the celebrated German novelist returns to the broken, now-bifurcated country of his birth. (Erika did not actually accompany the exiled Death in Venice author on his trip back to Germany in 1949, but you appreciate the poetic license given the film’s title.)

Erika’s real job is to be a ballast for what will be a turbulent reminder that you can never truly go home again.…