PG-13 | 1h 34m | Drama, Comedy | 2024
“A large inheritance can turn a normal family into lunatics. An abnormal family? You’ll see.” This line, uttered by one of the characters of Polish director Sylwester Jakimow’s light-hearted whodunit, “Inheritance” ("Spadeck” in Polish), sets the scene.
Eccentric innovator, the aged and fun-loving Wladyslaw (Jan Peszek) made his millions from his many offbeat inventions. Assisted only by his aged butler, the apparently childless widower and former game-show host, lives otherwise alone in a palatial mansion amid snow-capped mountains. Locals swear that he uses nothing but an “old-school Wigry-2 bicycle” to move around. That’s when he’s not using his Bentley, Jaguar, or Ferrari.
Summoned by news of his sudden death, Wladyslaw’s largely estranged family, their mock sorrow publicly intact, rush to his mansion, privately salivating at the prospect of inheriting millions. Nephew Dawid (Maciej Stuhr, also the narrator) is a teacher. His wife Zofia (Gabriela Muskala) is a tax clerk, and their children are 16-year-old Jozefina (Jozefina Karnkowska) and 13-year-old Henryk (Franek Slominski). Another nephew, Karol (Mateusz Krol), a marketer, and niece Natalia (Joanna Trzepiecinska), a crime novelist, have brought their partners along. The clan hasn’t met in decades, so they exchange dreams over dinner about what they’ll do with their share.
Delight turns to devastation when the family learn that their uncle willed his estate and savings of 10 million zlotys, to the local orphanage. Worse, he’s prepared a game. Wladyslaw offers the most resourceful child and their family a shot at winning rights to his patents and inventions, worth many more millions.
Before they can recover from their fury and shock, Wladyslaw shows up, alive. He’d pranked them, figuring that only the prospect of an inheritance, not his death, would bring them together. Through his final prank, he’s hoping to teach them not to make the mistakes he did, but to place family and relationships above prosperity. Then, he dies for real. Is his death accidental, or murder? If so, who’s the killer?
“Inheritance,” brimming with mature themes unsuitable for children, draws on the style of the “Knives Out” (2019) whodunit film franchise, which in turn draws on dozens of films in the whodunit genre. But Jakimow strays from that to dwell more on the family drama than the murder. He’s less concerned with who the killer is and if he or she is caught. He’s keener on Wladyslaw’s late-in-life stab at uniting and reviving his dysfunctional, divided family.
Nifty Cinematography
Jakimow’s crew deserve praise for inventive lighting, set design, editing, sound engineering, and nifty cinematography. The camera slider shot, which waltzes past or through the mansion’s myriad doors, corridors, and walls, mirrors the mood of the game that the family’s compelled to play. Zofia hisses so Dawid remembers not to blurt answers aloud; the others are “not family” but “competitors.”Classical music lovers may recognize one tune that the family dances to: Edvard Greig’s “Peer Gynt,“ Suite No. 1, Op. 46, ”Anitra’s Dance.”
Franek Slominski delivers a decent debut as the 13-year-old who turns out to be pivotal. Muskala seems the most accomplished of the adult cast, and Stuhr brings warmth to his Dawid. Not that the other actors don’t fit their roles. It’s just that the entire cast is missing a sparkling script to make their character arcs meaningful and less predictable.
What little wit and humor the screenplay has is nowhere near enough for a full-length feature film with a supposedly darkly comic premise. It starts engagingly enough, but ends too outlandishly even for a story set in an other-worldly mansion, located somewhere in an alpine countryside.
Still, Jakimow touches on worthy themes. Rounds in the game revolve around how well, or poorly, the relatives know each other, and how they’re better off collaborating rather than competing.
The Rubik’s Cube motif (Henryk’s seen toying with one) hints at how units that are part of a whole can be made to look irreconcilable or in harmony, all with a single twist of the wrist. Cube enthusiasts solve it almost unconsciously, but only because they’re so practiced. Wladyslaw’s point is that people merely living together, like fused units of a cube, doesn’t count for much unless every family member cares for the rest. Without that conscious, consistent effort, the mystery of happy family life remains unsolved.
Two alleged investigators, not exactly the sharpest knives in the drawer, chat privately about the avaricious family they’re interrogating, and deliver a most profound line, “Money doesn’t change people. It shows who they really are.”
