FilmSnobReviews

Title: Inheritance
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Director: Vaughn Stein
Starring: Lily Collins, Simon Pegg, Connie Nielsen
Runtime: 1 hr 51 mins

What It Is: When her rich a prominent father Archer Monroe (Patrick Warburton) passes away Lauren (Collins) isn’t left a large sum of money like her brother William (Chace Crawford). Instead, she’s left with a key and a note. What she uncovers is, as the note indicates, perhaps the darkest secret the Monroe family has. One that can put the family through actual ruin. Now it is up to Lauren to figure out what to do and how to handle it.

What We Think: There’s a lot going on here from a narrative perspective. Like way too much. As the serpentine nature of the story unravels a lot of it just doesn’t work. Lily Collins is really out here trying with her performance and Simon Pegg is pretty incredible. Sadly the story lets down the rest of the good fortune that gets built up through the performances. Stein’s direction is meh. It’s also way wayyy too long. There’s no reason for this to be ten minutes short of 2 hrs. If you cut a rough 15 minutes out of this it would flow so much better and perhaps allow the story to feel more organic.

Our Grade: D+, This was a hard sit through. I watched it late at night in a darkened room and it just. It made me sleepy. Too much happens and none of it is particularly interesting enough to hold attention. Chace Crawford is terrible here. Honestly, this is still some of his best work. Too many plot contrivances occur and that’s literally how the film moves along. With one convenient thing after another happening in order to simply move the story along because it isn’t well thought out. Don’t see this. Like really don’t.