Writer-Director Neil Burger began his career directing commercials in association with Ridley Scott Associates and moved on to feature films. Burger’s sophomore film, The Illusionist, and later on Divergent, prepared him for his latest, Inheritance featuring Phoebe Dynevor (The Colour Room, Fair Play) as Maya, a young woman drawn into an international conspiracy.
Co-starring Rhys Ifans (The Replacements, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, The Amazing Spider-Man, House of the Dragon), Inheritance is more about conscience and truth amongst family than the globe-trotting thriller those themes are wrapped in. Ifans plays Sam, a gun-for-hire who finally comes clean with his daughter, Maya, on the eve of his last mission. Burger and co-screenwriter Olen Steinhauer paint Maya as a drifter who constantly needs supervision as she and her sister, Jess (Kersti Bryan) lay their mom to rest.
These early moments in the film are where we learn who Maya is and what she is capable of. Burger and cinematographer Jackson Hunt (TV’s Betty, The Black Sea) shot Inheritance on an iPhone giving Maya’s reunion with Sam an immediate sense of a call to action. The jolting camera movements after this reunion get to be a bit too frenetic as Maya goes on a journey with her dad, replete with many actions that wouldn’t happen in today’s over-secured world. That these actions are present though is not a hindrance to appreciating the unfolding story.

For her performance, Dynevor shows an exceptional range in her various states, from concern to resolution as she begins to realize that her dad wants a normal life after being a spy for so long, is not who he says he is, and as the actions that happen to them to draw Maya further in reveal themselves. Burger and Steinhauer develop Maya from someone who needed a rock, and for her sins, she got her father. For his part, Ifans is mostly offscreen. The film’s pivotal father-daughter moments between Ifans and Dynevor play the strongest, building a bridge over troubled waters, to coin Simon & Garfunkel. Those particular sequences are pivotal for Maya’s resourcefulness and confidence building as she travels from the Middle East to India and then on to Korea.

The locations the production selected are the real centerpiece of a Jason Bourne lite story. The constant motion and editor Nick Carew’s (TV’s Vice, She’s Lost Control) tight weaving between the action and the character’s realization of what’s happening around her is effective. One minute we’re running through the streets of Mumbai, fearing that the police are closing in on us, and in the next moment, we’re catching our breath, taking in what just happened. In a way, Inheritance gets the first-person-shooter narrative down to a tee. As visceral and as tiring as that must feel, the action speaks for itself. Maya is a real character, Dynevor plays her in the moment as the camera captures it, and the audience is along for the ride. Inheritance isn’t going to win any awards, yet it’s these smaller movies where experimentation is applied that moves storytelling forward, and this is where Inheritance shines.
Burger’s resourcefulness in shooting with an iPhone allowed the production to globetrot with a smaller crew, maximizing efficiency, and creating real-world situations for Maya. Not all the experimental camerawork is effective for the story, which is more polished than the visuals, leaving Inheritance as a mixed bag. The efficiency ultimately pays off for Maya, and just as the production experimented, so too does Maya, serving as an amalgam for Burger.
As an amalgam though, the story gives its tells fairly easily, a byproduct of Maya’s inexperience and the development of her resourcefulness. Burger and Steinhauer aren’t Tom Clancy, John LeCarre, or Robert Ludlum. They are their brand of spy creators and spy craft in the modern world. The lean editing gives way to a leaner 99-minute run time, just enough time to sip that soda and much on some buttery popcorn, our amalgam for a good time.
Inheritance is not as polished as Burger’s earlier works. However, that lack of polish allows Phoebe Dynevor to shine in a real-world cat-and-mouse scenario. Visually, Inheritance has a punch that won’t soon be forgotten, and you’ll be wondering what happens to Maya after the end credits roll (be sure to stay through them though).