Some fathers give their daughters conditional bequests or keys to buried treasure. Sam gives Maya lessons in spycraft.
Maya (Phoebe Dynevor) is contacted by her largely absent father Sam (Ryhs Ifans) soon after her mother’s death. Maya is initially unaware that Sam isn’t a fixer for real estate companies but a spy. By the time she finds out, Sam has been kidnapped, forcing Maya to uncover a side of her she didn’t know existed.
Neil Burger’s Inheritance is unlike most glossy, heavily produced espionage thrillers. Despite hopping across the planet – New York City to Cairo to Delhi to Seoul – Inheritance has a grounded, gritty feel. The screenplay by Burger and Olen Steinhauer is within the realm of plausibility.
Buildings don’t get blown up, nor do spies leap onto taxiing planes. Yet, it’s a bit of an impossible mission for Maya, who is being asked to behave like an undercover agent even though she doesn’t have the training for it.
Inheritance has been premiered on the streaming platform Lionsgate Play. The film is exactly the kind of fleet-footed fare that can be scarfed down along with dinner.
Burger does struggle a bit to make every one of the 101 minutes engaging. What helps is his documentary shooting style. Filmed entirely on iPhones, Inheritance closely follows Maya as she travels from one city to the next, trying to learn more about her father’s abductors while also understanding who he actually is.
The film’s best realised chase is set in Delhi. Burger makes excellent use of the Indian bike rider’s penchant for lane cutting in a sequence in which Maya tries to shake her tail. It appears that the bystanders in this segment as well as the others are played by non-professional actors, which heightens the film’s realism.
Keira Knightley lookalike Phoebe Dynevor is a suitably doughty heroine, but the better performance is by Rhys Ifans, who smoothly brings out Sam’s reptilian ways and disarming insincerity.
