PLATFORM: NETFLIX | RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
Lauren Monroe is the eldest of two in a wealthy, successful family; she’s District Attorney, brother a senator, and Dad… a… banker? Gambler? Rich, anyway. And clearly awful. Anyway, after the Dad’s sudden death Lauren inherits his secret, which is that [SPOILER ALERT] Simon Pegg is buried in a bunker at the bottom of the garden. If you can continue a plot from that which only builds in tension and intrigue, then you’re a better man than writer Matthew Kennedy and director Vaughn Stein.
Chained and haggard Pegg slowly reveals his identity and background, but with sufficient sense of unreliable narrator for you to wonder what really happened. However, also with sufficient evidence that Lauren’s Dad chained him up in the bottom of his garden without due process for you to think “Call the police Lauren! What is wrong with you, you horrible woman?!”
Pegg is trying his hardest throughout (and having much more fun towards the end) although his channelling of Jack Nicholson would feel less heavy-handed if he wasn’t constantly saying “You want answers? You want the truth?”. In fact, the whole cast do try, but the dialogue is often quite weak, particularly in the long-awaited Rashomon moment reveal.
Inheritance’s central theme seems to be the unearthing of dark secrets beneath the perfect family but this image is undermined by the fact that even Lauren seems like a stroppy cow, with the rest of the family ranging from shit-eating smug to obnoxious bully, to toxic trophy wife, and the first secret we learn is that THEY’RE KEEPING SIMON PEGG AT THE BOTTOM OF THE GARDEN. Genuinely though. Where could you go from there?
