Inheritance Film Review: All About Her Father

Neil Burger’s Inheritance is an interesting experiment in lo-fi filmmaking that benefits from a strong central performance by Phoebe Dynevor.

Inheritance is certainly a flawed film, but it’s also the kind of experience that will benefit from a viewer who goes with the flow and accepts some of its shortcomings.

Phoebe Dynevor (of Bridgerton and Fair Play) plays the aforementioned Maya. As the film starts, we see that her mother has passed away, and through some exposition, we learn that she took care of her for six months right before her passing. It’s during the wake, though, that both she and her sister Jess (Kersti Bryan) are taken by surprise by the arrival of their father, the mysterious and globe-trotting Sam (Rhys Ifans, of House of the Dragon). It turns out Sam has come to pay his respects, but also to offer Maya a job: to go with him to Cairo to take care of some of his clients for his real estate business.

Even though Jess warns her that it’s a stupid idea, Maya goes along with her father’s plan and travels with him. But this is when things turn shady: Sam disappears after receiving a mysterious phone call and eventually calls Maya, asking her to retrieve a package for him so she can go to New Delhi and give it to someone else. It turns out Sam is some kind of spy in possession of classified American documents, and both Interpol and a group of enemy spies are looking for him. Desperate to find a solution, Maya tries to help her father, even going as far as travelling to both Mumbai and Seoul with a false identity, but predictably, things don’t work out as she initially expected.

First things first: as you might have noticed if you watched the trailer, Inheritance is the latest in a long line of movies that have been marketed as having been “entirely shot on an iPhone”. But unlike some of its big-budget brethren, one can actually tell this film was shot that way. Yes, camera movements are smooth, presumably due to the use of a cinema-grade stabiliser, and yes, cinematographer Jackson Hunt probably paired the phone with professional lenses and other expensive gadgets. But in the end, Inheritance does have a specific look that differentiates it from superficially similar projects.

That’s all well and good, but what does this lo-fi look bring to the table? Well, Inheritance’s wobbly image quality, long takes and naturalistic lighting allow the story to feel more grounded, making the viewer feel like they’re watching real people get involved in real situations. This is emphasised by a camera that is constantly following Maya, from behind, from the side and usually up close, making the movie feel quite claustrophobic.

Thus, even though it might sound like a gimmick, the fact that Inheritance was shot in this very specific way actually benefits the story, as well as the way we perceive the main character’s journey. And that’s great because some of the script’s narrative beats aren’t particularly believable, and actually make the antagonists look like complete idiots. For example, the fact that Maya can easily travel from one country to another with a fake passport feels a tad too convenient, and although she barely gets involved in one action sequence –an admittedly exciting motorbike chase–, the stakes never feel as high as they should, thus making her little adventure feel a little too safe, or not as dangerous as it should have been.

Thankfully, director Neil Burger (of Divergent fame) manages to convey quite a bit of tension most of the time, making it clear that the viewer is following a woman out of her element. In that sense, Inheritance ends up being a bit of a paranoid thriller, with its protagonist always looking behind her back, worrying both about her life and her father’s. This is helped by Phoebe Dynevor’s game performance. She plays Maya as an intelligent and perceptive woman, and as someone used to stealing stuff from street vendors and small shops – a skill that, as you might imagine, comes in handy down the line. Apart from her, the only other standout character belongs to Rhys Ifans, an interesting character actor incapable of giving a bad performance (even when he appears in ridiculous fare like Venom: the Last Dance).

Admittedly, Inheritance feels more like a risky experiment than an actual well-rounded movie, almost like Burger and his team were more preoccupied with the “shot on an iPhone” gimmick than the actual narrative. Thus, if one takes its visual style out of the equation, the movie ends up being a rather traditional thriller that has something to say about paternal relationships and their consequences. But if the film works as much as it does, it’s thanks to its character work, Dynevor’s performance, and yes, the immediacy the raw, imperfect cinematography gives to the proceedings. Inheritance may have inherited a bit too much from older and better paranoid thrillers, but it’s still exciting enough to be worth a recommendation.

Inheritance will be released in US theatres on January 24, 2025.