They say a family that plays together stays together. That said, death and money can also do wonders to bring a family together. That’s obviously the belief motivating Wladyslaw Fortuna, a multi-millionaire inventor and game show host in the 2024 Polish comedy Inheritance (Spadek). Fortuna plots to gather his estranged family with games aplenty and his fortune as prize money. The old fox just needs to die first.
So, when Fortuna kicks the bucket, his family gathers like vultures at his countryside mansion to hear his will read. There’s Dawid, a schoolteacher henpecked by his frosty wife Zosia. They’re joined by Dawid’s murder-mystery novelist cousin, Natalia, and her gold-digger boyfriend. There’s also their youngest cousin Karol, a germaphobe, and his boyfriend, also Karol. They’re unimaginatively named Karol 1 and Karol 2.
When the cousins and their partners learn that the only way to inherit the rights to Fortuna’s patents is to play games designed by their uncle, the notion of blood being thicker than water gets seriously tested. Dawid has a puppyish earnestness and just wants everyone to get along. His wife Zosia reminds him to get his head in the game because, “We’re not family anymore. We’re competitors.”
For a gameshow host and inventor, the games Fortuna concocts aren’t that unique. There’s a rather tame escape room that requires minimal effort to discover what “shocks” you. The group must also wander through a maze that’s lined with family photos. But the most entertaining game was a lightning round of family trivia, where everyone discovers just how embarrassingly little they know about each other’s lives.
Inheritance asks very little of its audience, but there are just some gaps that can’t be ignored. Dawid’s son, Henryk, is flagged early on as some kind of boy wonder, but the kid takes ages to crack that the Wi-Fi password is “very difficult,” or that his parents are getting divorced. And when the police arrive to investigate Fortuna’s death, nobody questions why they’re dressed like it’s casual Friday.
Just like the games Fortuna creates for his family, Inheritance isn’t interested in making anything new or innovative to surprise its audience. Instead, like simple home cooked food, the movie offers recognisable ideas and themes that feel comforting precisely because of their familiarity. Watching Inheritance, you can’t help but notice the genes of other movies from across genres.
There are obvious parallels to Knives Out, although Fortuna’s family is less neurotic and not nearly as interesting. There are touches of the French musical comedy 8 Femmes, with the family trapped by snow in Fortuna’s mansion together with the patriarch’s killer. Dawid and his cousins are just lucky their uncle isn’t making them play the kind of demented games Samara Weaving’s new in-laws made her play in Ready or Not.
While Inheritance appears heir to this niche genre of movies involving families playing games or solving whodunnits, it feels very much like a poor relation next to these better cousins. Inheritance doesn’t have the conviction or bite of Knives Out; the brilliant comedy gold of 8 Femmes, or the high-stakes drama of Ready or Not. Even Awakfina’s comedy Quiz Lady did a better job of growing its family roots and making us care.
Instead, like its lead character Dawid, whose passive and unobtrusive personality makes him a wallflower besides his competitive family, Inheritance is content to plod along, happy as itself. It coasts by at a gentle pace as an undemanding murder mystery with an inexhaustible supply of dad jokes, some of which are actually funny. Meanwhile, the games, and Fortuna’s motivations behind them, oscillate between endearing to low-key creepy.
If you have nothing better to watch, don’t want to expend much energy concentrating, and are in the mood for a bit of international culture, then Inheritance may be a decent pick. It’s almost perfectly family-friendly fare, except that it’s spoiled by the occasional F-bombs, which in an otherwise exceptionally mild movie, just feels a teenager’s misguided attempts to try sounding a bit more adult and edgy.
Still, there are good moral lessons about family and what really matters in life. As Dawid observes, “Money doesn’t change people. It shows who they really are.” And Fortuna’s heirs discover that they actually care more for each other than they imagined. Miraculously, Inheritance manages not to come across as overly-saccharine or preachy. But at family dinners, it won’t be sitting at the big table with movies like Knives Out or Ready or Not.
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