Although the sentiment that there’s “superhero fatigue” was exacerbated after the financial underperformance of Superman and The Fantastic Four: First Steps this summer, Hollywood’s more enamored with spies than heroes in spandex. Even though Amazon Studios hasn’t announced who’ll replace Daniel Craig as the next James Bond, this year saw the release of a new Mission: Impossible sequel, Steven Soderbergh’s Black Bag, Rami Malek in The Amateur, and the Brazilian awards contender The Secret Agent. On the television side, Black Doves, Slow Horses, The Agency, The Night Agent, Reacher, and The Day of the Jackal have competed for viewing hours. Political turbulence around the globe may have prevented these fictional stories from feeling like escapism, but it hasn’t curbed their popularity.
The angle that’s curiously absent from many of these intelligence thrillers is the origin story. There’re now multiple films about how Peter Parker came to become Spider-Man, but even the rebooted Mr. & Mrs. Smith picked up well after the titular counterintelligence operatives had already adopted their secret identities. Inheritance isn’t based on an existing novel or property (which is perhaps why it was released to such little fanfare), and it has a novel concept of how a normal person could become part of an international conspiracy. It’s a well-known trope in spy fiction that covert agencies recruit field agents who aren’t weighed down by strong interpersonal relationships, so it makes sense that two members of the same broken family would find themselves in the same line of work.
Inheritance is opened by a funeral, which indicates it won’t be the type of globetrotting adventure one might find from Kingsman or Fast & Furious. Maya (Phoebe Dynevor) has just lost her mother, but she was already in the midst of a downward spiral that included minor burglaries and random late-night hookups. The long-term, painful illness that Maya’s mother endured meant that her death was nearly a relief, but the surprise of the funeral proceedings is the appearance of her absent father, Sam (Rhys Ifans), whose absence in her life was assumed to be a result of indifference. Although it’s obvious that Sam’s professed desire to be a more active part of his daughter’s life is a ruse, Maya’s in a vulnerable enough position that she’s willing to be manipulated.
Instead of a prototypical training montage involving gadgets and obstacle courses, Maya’s introduction to the world of espionage is one of willful ignorance. It’s apparent by the time that Maya is on an expensive trip to Cairo to meet her father’s shady business associate that what Sam does might not be legal, but money-laundering is worth it in her eyes to reconnect with the only mentor figure she has left. However, any reluctant misdemeanors on Maya’s part become an unfortunate commitment when it’s made clear that Sam sent her to take his place because of the danger he was in. By believing that she was of use to her father, Maya inadvertently set herself up as the scapegoat for his crimes.
The lo-fi approach by director Neil Burger is the sendup that the spy genre needed to feel grounded in a semblance of reality. The ramifications of the illicit information that Maya has been asked to transport on her father’s behalf aren’t clear, but that doesn’t mean that each shadowy encounter isn’t highly dangerous. The best set pieces in Inheritance are simple, with an impromptu motorcycle chase through a cluttered urban complex a standout. It’s in the film’s best interest to leave as little to the imagination as possible because what Maya’s doing is less compelling than the ethical questions that she faces.
The most distinct form of stylization used in Inheritance is the intimate, close-quarter visuals that resulted from the film being shot on an iPhone. Although this was a gimmick first popularized by Sean Baker with Tangerine a decade prior, the technology within mobile devices has advanced to the point that it's no longer a distinguishing factor in most cases. While Burger had access to advanced lighting and staging devices, the benefit of shooting on a small-scale device is the voyeuristic immediacy that gets too close for comfort throughout Maya’s cryptic odyssey. Although this method can feel like an instance of style-over-substance used to make unremarkable exchanges more propulsive, they underscore the idea that Maya’s an outsider in a world that she doesn’t belong in.
Burger’s a director who could be relied upon to deliver safe, unremarkable studio achievement, but Inheritance suggests an underlying interest in stories of loners who feel alienated by society. His previous attempts to pinpoint these emotions suffered from comparisons made with better projects from more accomplished filmmakers; Burger’s period drama The Illusionist suffered from being the second magician-centric film of 2006 after Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige, and his young-adult adaptation Divergent was like reheated leftovers of The Hunger Games. Inheritance is too choppy and narratively convoluted to suggest that he’s an underrated auteur who’s never received the credit he deserved, but it does heighten anticipation for whatever project Burger does next, particularly if it has a similarly low budget.
Father-daughter stories are common in 2025, and Inheritance doesn’t hold a candle to the adventure of One Battle After Another, the somber survivalism in Train Dreams, or the hard-worn grief in Sentimental Value. However, it’s refreshingly frank in its admittance that some parents are simply narcissistic vultures who’ll manipulate one-sided relationships.