Film Review – Inheritance

January 23rd, 2025 | POSTED BY Allen Almachar

There is a stripped down, bare bones quality to Inheritance (2025) that works in its favor. Perhaps that is because – according to reports – it was shot entirely with an iPhone. But it also has to do with the straightforward way the story is laid out. This is a thriller that is lean, efficient, and to the point. Director Neil Burger (who also cowrites with Olen Steinhauer) doesn’t waste a lot of time dillydallying with unnecessary plot contrivances. In fact, part of what makes the film a joy is its construction. It moves with breathless pace, taking us from Egypt, to India, and to South Korea in the blink of an eye. And although the ending may wrap up a little too conveniently for my taste, there is no denying the fun there is to be had going through the experience.

Watching it, I was reminded of the work of Steven Soderbergh. While I wouldn’t call Soderbergh an “experimentalist,” he does have a reputation for playing with cinematic form. Whether that means incorporating multiple film stocks (Traffic, 2000), using equipment from a bygone era to achieve a certain look (The Good German, 2006), or dabbling with iPhone use as well (Unsane, 2018), Soderbergh is no stranger when it comes to trying different things. In terms of tone, Inheritance resembles KIMI (2022) in the way the protagonist unwittingly finds themselves in the middle of a conspiracy and must use their wits to get out of it. And like Kimi, Burger inserts an increasing level of paranoia and claustrophobia into his narrative. The further things go along, the more trapped the characters feel.

This sensibility is reached most notably through the cinematography. Burger – in coordination with cinematographer Jackson Hunt – places the iPhone camera almost exclusively in closeup with the actors. There are very few establishing shots – the frame remains at either medium angles or right up to the characters’ faces. This creates an immediacy to the action, where we can see facial reactions clearly as danger approaches in the background. During an extended chase scene, a character rides a motorbike as cars follow closely behind them. Seeing both the actor’s face and the speeding vehicles in the same shot heightens the tension dramatically. The style also creates a deeper sense of immersion as we travel across the globe. Whether it is the pyramids of Egypt, the streets of India, or the tall skyscrapers in South Korea, the frequent closeups of actors right in the thick of these environments draws us in, as though we were standing in those places right next to them.

Of course, the style doesn’t add up to a whole lot if we do not have actors capable of carrying the film almost solely with their face. Thankfully, Phoebe Dynevor is up to the challenge. She plays Maya, a young woman in a funk after the recent passing of her mother. Things get interesting when her absentee father, Sam (Rhys Ifans) shows up at the funeral and offers her a job. Instead of sitting around her apartment depressed, Sam asks her to travel with him to Cairo to handle some real estate business. Despite not having much of a relationship with her father, Maya accepts. Perhaps going on an adventure could lift her spirits. Her wishes are granted in an extreme way when, almost as soon as they arrive, Sam gets kidnapped by unknown assailants. The kidnappers contact Maya and order her to retrieve a mysterious item on their behalf, or else she’ll never see her father alive again.

The gist of the narrative involves Maya communicating with the kidnappers on the phone, navigating various foreign lands, and trying to find a way to save her father. For a movie that is made up primarily of someone talking on the phone and doing a lot of walking, Inheritance is soaked with suspense and intrigue. Dynevor does much of the heavy lifting, expressing the character’s anxiety, confusion, smarts, and resilience through her face alone. There are plenty of instances where the camera will sit on Maya, watching her quietly contemplate her situation and any options there are for escape. These instances are divided by sequences of immediate tension, where unnamed henchmen will randomly pop up to make sure Maya is doing her job or to stop her from taking matters into her own hands. Added onto the stress is the general risk of being a woman alone in a place where she doesn’t speak the language and doesn’t understand the customs. There’s a video game quality to the action, where Maya must travel from one place to another, avoid being taken by bad guys, and to unlock secrets to get to the next phase of her mission.

Inheritance is the kind of story where the journey is far more rewarding than the destination. Maya galivanting around the globe was a lot more fun to watch than where she ultimately ends up. The way her relationship with her father, her interactions with the kidnappers, and her own unhappiness resolved was a little too clean, a little too neat and tidy. Sure, there are twists and turns I didn’t expect, and those were surprising. But when it comes to character motivation, everything fell into place like a puzzle. I don’t need my movies to end in disarray or complete ambiguity, but I also don’t need them to address every loose end and tie them into a bow also.

But even with that slight misstep, Inheritance is still an engrossing and entertaining thriller. Featuring an interesting visual design, a solid lead performance, and a thumping electronic score, Burger and his team took limited resources and squeezed the most out of them. This is a good example of a film not needing big, splashy, and expensive set pieces to be successful. I was captivated by it from beginning to end, and I think anyone else willing to give it a shot will be too. I look forward to seeing this one again.

Featured, Inheritance, Jackson Hunt, KIMI, Neil Burger, Phoebe Dynevor, Rhys Ifans, Steven Soderbergh, The Good German, Traffic, Unsane