‘Inheritance’: The Next Great Action Thriller Was Shot Entirely on an iPhone

Form doesn’t just seamlessly meld with content in Inheritance—in many respects, it is the content, as director Neil Burger’s iPhone 13-shot thriller derives its dynamism from its chosen mode of construction.

Assuming an up-close-and-personal vantage point on its action and, in particular, its resolute heroine as she attempts to navigate a globe-trotting conspiracy into which she’s been unwittingly thrust, this inventive spy saga transcends gimmickry by finding consistent, relevant ways to employ its method for lively madness. Propulsive from its opening to its closing frames, it’s a successful experiment that’s highly attuned to the digital immediacy of our modern condition.

Inheritance, which hits theaters Jan. 24, may be a work defined by its directorial approach, but it’s also a testament to the charisma of Phoebe Dynevor, who on the heels of 2023’s Sundance breakout Fair Play continues to prove herself a formidable and captivating lead.

Dynevor is Maya, a New York City twentysomething who’s introduced shoplifting a bottle of booze from a Manhattan liquor store, chugging it on the street, and heading to a dance club where she meets a stranger whom she brings back to her place for some vigorous and—as evidenced by her habit of shoving his hand away from her face—unemotional sex. Maya is in turmoil, and justifiably so, as it’s quickly revealed that she’s processing the recent death of the mother she cared for (in her mom’s apartment) for the last nine arduous months of her life.

Jess (Kersti Bryan) tells her sister Maya that she’s been a blessing but that does little to relieve Maya’s unhappiness, which only escalates at the funeral, when both siblings are shocked by the unexpected arrival of their father Sam (Rhys Ifans), who’s clearly been out of the picture for some time.

Though Maya has no initial interest in dealing with her wayward pop, she’s intrigued enough to join him at a bar to hear a business proposal he thinks would be ideal for her. Her interest mounts when Sam informs her that he’s working as a real estate agent and that he needs her to help seal a deal by meeting a foreign client in Cairo and escorting him back to the States. Maya thinks this is dubious and Jess considers it insane given Sam’s untrustworthiness. Yet the combination of earning $1,000/day and getting to have an adventure—and to escape the apartment, and metropolis, that has been her prison for the better part of a year—compels her to accept.

Maya additionally hopes that this job will allow her to reconnect with Sam. Alas, such optimism takes an abrupt hit when, on the flight to Egypt, an attendant refers to him by a different last name and, shortly thereafter, Maya surreptitiously goes through his carry-on bag and finds a passport featuring that same phony handle.

This is not a good sign for her impending assignment, and after a visit to the pyramids and the Sphinx—the same location where their family took a photo years earlier during happier times—the you-know-what hits the fan during a dinner out, with Sam momentarily leaving the table and then phoning Maya to tell her that she must flee the establishment. As she subsequently learns, Sam has been kidnapped, and his captors want something he has and which Maya can procure—and she has two days to do so or her father dies.

Inheritance’s set-up is routine and its subsequent revelations—most of them related to Sam’s history of helping bad guys launder their money through real estate deals—are of a relatively familiar sort. Nonetheless, the thrill is in the way the director shoots and stages these proceedings.

Collaborating with cinematographer Jackson Hunt, Burger maintains tight proximity to his leading lady at virtually all times. Coupled with his ability to freely move about his busy urban spaces, such closeness lends the material its breakneck verve. So too do a series of scenes shot in long, unbroken takes that create you-are-there excitement, which peaks during a motorcycle chase in New Delhi in which the camera vacillates between a variety of positions—on the front of the bike, at Dynevor’s side, and behind the vehicle—that amplify the sequences’ electricity.

Maya’s odyssey takes her from New York to Egypt, India, and ultimately South Korea, and Burger’s iPhone aesthetics immerse us in these locals, getting right inside their bustling marketplaces, crowded thoroughfares, and packed airports, the last of which turn out to be venues for recurring customs-related tension.

Scored to pulse-pounding electronica, Inheritance barrels forward with urgency, much of it written all over the face of Dynevor, whose Maya is a resilient and resourceful young woman grappling with circumstances that grow more perilous, and startling, by the second. To a significant degree, the film plays like a classic Hitchcockian effort with a 21st-century twist, and the actress proves a transfixing center of attention throughout, expertly expressing Maya’s fear, fury, and determination amidst ceaseless racing-from-danger pandemonium.

Just as Dynevor makes for a likable heroine, Ifans once again confirms that few do shady duplicity better, and it’s no huge surprise to discover that his Sam is maybe not quite as innocent a victim as he appears to be. Written by Burger and Olen Steinhauer, Inheritance delivers a bevy of twists and turns that would be more predictable if not for the film’s blistering pace.

Maya is in such constant motion that the focus is predominantly on her moment-to-moment bids to evade various groups of individuals—some criminals, some law enforcement officers—who appear out of nowhere and instigate pursuits through real-world locales that are populated by non-actors and seemingly lit with natural light. Burger does a fantastic job orchestrating extended set pieces in civilian areas, generating anxiety from everything from a slam-bang sprint through traffic to a quick shot of a person looking suspiciously over their shoulder.

Ultimately, Inheritance winds up more or less where one expected it might. Yet that’s hardly a problem in light of its creative, stirring on-the-fly form, which makes it an ideal example of a film in which the journey is far more important than the destination.