R | 1h 41m | Action, Thriller | Jan. 24, 2024
Are you going to get your money’s worth watching a film shot sans helicopter, crane, and dolly shots, and mic booms? The sound isn’t quite up to par, but if you didn’t know ahead of time, you wouldn’t notice. Technology is amazing. Literally anyone can shoot a movie now. But there’s a reason Yale University’s MFA directing program selects only three applicants, out of 25,000, yearly. Directing is hard.
Grieving Daughter
Dazed and confused, Maya (Phoebe Dynevor of “Bridgerton”) has taken care of her dying mother for a year. We first meet her shoplifting a tequila bottle, downing half of it on the sidewalk, heading into a club, and rounding off the night with random sex.
Maya reunites with her estranged father, Sam (Rhys Ifans), who’s been MIA for most of her life, at her mother’s funeral. Maya’s older sister Jess’s (Kersti Bryan) reaction to long-lost dad putting in an appearance is an eye-rolling, “Oh, come on.”
Says Maya to Sam, “You haven’t been here for us in a long time.” Apologizing profusely for being a useless fool, Sam seeks reconciliation, and he does sound quite contrite.
Got a Job for You
Sam offers Maya a gig as an agent-host. Her job would be to escort potential buyers around properties for his international realty company—and it pays $1,000 a day. Despite reservations, what 20-something could turn down that kind of cash for basically just looking cute? After being cooped-up in an apartment for nine months, the globetrotting angle also sweetens the deal exponentially. Not to mention a fatherless daughter’s yearning for better-late-than-never attention and affection.What we know so far is that Dad’s a bit shady; he admits he used to do some occasional money laundering. What we’re about to find out is how kleptomaniac Maya’s intrepid spirit will stand her in good stead when she pratfalls into her dad’s espionage world.
Here’s the Jason Bourne parallel: Bourne was a trained, high-level CIA assassin who remembers his skill set via intuition and muscle memory, but is otherwise a full-on amnesiac. Maya’s inherited her dad’s spy genes and shrewd intelligence, but has to figure out the mess she’s inadvertently landed in, as things unfold.
iPhone Shooting
The iPhone 13 Pro captures scenic international settings (when not doing close-ups of Dynevor’s killer cheekbones or Ifans’s debonaire shiftiness) and delivers a good-looking spy thriller. The stable camera closely follows our heroine on various Bourne-ish foot-and-motorcycle chase scenes. As mentioned, it’s not really possible to guess that “Inheritance” was shot on a tiny pocket MacGuffin, without setups, trailers, and a whole crew. That takes know-how.Boosted by an electronic dance music (EDM) soundtrack (the musical genre of nightclubs, raves, and festivals), the minimalist plot is standard-issue spy thriller, but the solid performances—in particular Dynevor’s pout-y charisma—make “Inheritance” a modest yet entertaining little espionage yarn.
