INHERITANCE Review: These Spy Kids Films Aren't What They Used to Be
Phoebe Dynevor and Rhys Ifans star in director Neil Burger's thriller.
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Clearly, it’s an unpleasant situation to find yourself in: you are sitting in a nice restaurant, the person you’re with excuses themselves for a second, and then disappears entirely, presumably sticking you with the check.
It can get much worse though, like it goes for Maya (Phoebe Dynevor) in Neil Burger’s latest thriller Inheritance. In her case, she is sharing a meal with her estranged father Sam (Rhys Ifans), who reappeared in her life after the recent death of her mom.
Sam says he wishes to make amends and offers Maya a honestly very suspect sounding job that includes her accompanying him to Cairo. And while Maya is not entirely blind to all of Sam’s shady tactics, his sudden disappearing act followed by his frantic call telling Maya to run too, puts a very different spin on things. Another call follows, informing Maya that her father has been kidnapped, and to get him back safely she now needs to insert herself in the middle of something very much resembling an international espionage scheme.
That whole restaurant sequence is a truly neatly-executed episode, which the film doesn’t really top going forward (with the exception of one good chasing scene). And the much-talked about main aesthetic choice – the movie is shot entirely on an iPhone, almost docufiction style – isn’t to blame.
While definitely polarizing for some viewers, this style isn’t entirely new for genre films, not after the jittery aesthetics of the Bourne films, and not after Steven Soderbergh and his Unsane (2018) proved you can absolutely create suspense when an iPhone is placed in the right hands. More importantly, this shaky, raw, realistic style not only works for the story, but makes it a tiny bit more relatable. After all, isn’t that how most of us tend to experience the world lately?
The semi-docufiction technique that’s applied here also leads to an interesting effect, as throughout the film we witness many authentic reactions from non-actors to Dynevor’s Maya and her actions. It is also true that even these side eye glances don’t help with creating any viable sense of actual danger for her. To be clear, this is in no way has to do with Phoebe Dynevor's effors; in fact, her performance as a person who’s been stuck in the same routine for so long, she now cannot help but constantly move forward no matter what; it's one of the most realistic things here.
It's the way the narrative is structured that turns out to be the issue that stands in the way of Inheritance fully living up to its potential. Maybe it was the case of Neil Burger and his co-author Olen Steinhauer hanging too much on the chosen aesthetics, but there’s just not enough meat to this story to really make it exciting. For all of its great setup – the heroine is alone, abandoned in a foreign country she’s never been to before, and now needs to go to another strange country and do spy things, while Interpol is already calling! – everything just comes too easy for Maya.
She gets the instructions and goes to different places, fulfilling the quest that never feels authentically suspenseful. Even the cocky guys from Hostel got somewhat tense for a few seconds when they first arrived to that faraway tiny town in Slovakia – and they really didn't believe they had reasons to be worried.
Maya knows full well what she’s doing can go all kinds of wrong (once again, calls from Interpol agents are generally a pretty big hint), but here's where another major issue becomes evident – nothing in Inheritance ever leads to any significant consequences.
The film is now playing in select theaters nationwide, via IFC Films.
Inheritance
Director(s)
- Neil Burger
Writer(s)
- Neil Burger
- Olen Steinhauer
Cast
- Phoebe Dynevor
- Rhys Ifans
- Ciara Baxendale