Inheritance Movie Review: When Family Secrets and Trauma Refuse to Stay Buried

Inheritance stars Rachel Noll James and West Brown. Photo: IMDb

Inheritance (2024)
The past never dies

Following its successful release in the US and Canada, Inheritance is now available on major digital platforms in the UK.

Genre: Family Drama
Runtime: 1 hr. 42 min.

Director: Emily Moss Wilson
Writers: Rachel Noll James, Austin Highsmith Garces
Starring: Austin Highsmith Garces, Rachel Noll James, Wes Brown

Available to stream on: Amazon Video, Apple TV, Google Play, Tubi, and other platforms.


Synopsis

When two estranged sisters reunite to bury their father, unresolved trauma and long-suppressed secrets come roaring back. Inheritance is a tense, emotional drama that explores grief, family legacy, and the haunting realization that some things are passed down whether we want them or not. (One Tree Entertainment, 2026)


Overview

The story opens with a family backyard barbecue that turns tragic when the patriarch collapses while playing the guitar. A widower, his two daughters—Lucy and Paige—are the center of his life, despite years of estrangement. Paige has been absent for a long time, struggling with financial instability and alcoholism.

When she finally returns, Paige is focused solely on her share of the inheritance. Their father leaves Lucy the house, while Paige is entitled to most of the money and additional property. As executor of the will, Lucy is authorized to release the money in increments on the condition that Paige enters rehab.

This arrangement infuriates Paige, who attempts to circumvent her father’s wishes. Old grievances surface as the sisters clash, forced to confront not only their father’s death but lingering guilt surrounding their mother’s passing.


Review

Inheritance (2024) is a quiet, cutting drama that understands how grief rarely arrives alone. When Lucy and Paige reunite, the film resists melodrama, opting instead for something more unsettling: the slow resurfacing of wounds never allowed to heal.

The director and cast handle the material with restraint, allowing silences and small gestures to carry emotional weight. The sisters’ relationship feels lived-in, shaped by years of resentment, avoidance, and unspoken blame. Trauma is not framed as a single event, but as damage that echoes across time.

The film’s central theme, that legacy is emotional as much as material, lands with quiet force. Like many childhood homes, the house bears witness to every trauma and whispered secret the sisters tried to outrun.

Though the pacing occasionally buckles under its melancholy, the final act delivers a lasting punch. For fans of character-driven family dramas, Inheritance is worth considering.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

*Thank you to One Tree Entertainment for the screener link for review consideration. I haven’t been compensated for this review and all views and opinions expressed are my own.

All Saints Day Is the Must-Watch Dark Comedy of the Season

All Saints Day will be available on digital and on demand. Photo: One Tree Entertainment, used with permission.

🎬 New Release Spotlight: ALL SAINTS DAY

Some family reunions are more sobering than others…

Mark your calendars: ALL SAINTS DAY arrives on digital and on demand December 2. This darkly funny, emotionally layered story blends dark comedy with family drama in a tight, compelling 99-minute feature. (One Tree Entertainment, 2025)


About the Film

When Ronan realizes his oldest brother, Kier, is drinking himself toward disaster, he launches a desperate intervention. But doing so means calling in reinforcements: their estranged priest brother and long-lost sister.

What follows is a chaotic, heartfelt, and unexpectedly humorous Irish family reunion, where old wounds and buried secrets collide in ways no one is prepared for.


The Creative Team

Written by Julianne Homokay
Homokay is a multi-talented screenwriter, playwright, performer, director, and musician. With an MFA in Playwriting from UNLV, her work spans numerous full-length plays and musicals.

ALL SAINTS DAY is adapted from her original stage play All Saints in the Old Colony, a 2015 Eugene O’Neill Theater Center semi-finalist that premiered at Playhouse on the Square in Memphis in 2018.

Directed by Matt Aaron Krinsky
Krinsky, director, producer, and writer, brings extensive experience across film, theater, and live events. ALL SAINTS DAY marks his feature film directorial debut, introducing his grounded, character-driven approach to the big screen.


Starring

  • Don Swayze (Ethan Coen’s Honey Don’t!, On Swift Horses, True Blood)
  • Lenny Clarke (NBC’s Extended Family, Halloween Kills)
  • Jeff Berg (NCIS, Battlefield I)