Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt
The acting is fine, the filmmaking is honest, and the class-conscious story couldn't be more timely.
✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
Denmark, Sweden, Norway · 2003
1h 56m
Director Per Fly
Starring Ulrich Thomsen, Lisa Werlinder, Ghita Nørby, Lars Brygmann
Genre Drama
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When his father commits suicide, Christoffer is called back to take over the management of the family business, a steelworks factory. Although his dreams and passions lie elsewhere, he feels obliged to take up the duty. As the management task gradually takes over his life, Christoffer begins to lose everything he once held dear.
Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt
The acting is fine, the filmmaking is honest, and the class-conscious story couldn't be more timely.
Arresting and fascinating.
The Hollywood Reporter by Frank Scheck
The film is an initially insightful portrait of modern corporate society that unfortunately lapses into melodrama.
New York Daily News by Jami Bernard
Don't see The Inheritance if you're already depressed. This airless downer from Danish director Per Fly is about an heir who makes one wrong decision from which even lousier decisions effortlessly flow.
Fly's striking, often suspenseful drama has all the elements of a Shakespearean tragedy: an insecure young prince who must prove his mettle and loses his soul; a cruel, manipulative queen who cares only for power; a close adviser whose motives aren't always clear.
The Inheritance is most effective in its first half...But the film falters as it moves closer to home and the heart, veering off into melodramatic and quasi-surreal scenarios.
A formally elegant, subtly savage and powerfully affecting film.
The New Republic by Stanley Kauffmann
Once we learn the story's terrain, we have a pretty good idea of the paths it will follow. Still, because the picture is tidily directed and acted--in one case, better than that--it has the comforts of well-made old things.
The New York Times by Stephen Holden
As the relentlessly morose movie shows, a corporate hero is not the same thing as a humanitarian; in many ways, he's the antithesis.
The Inheritance has a promising start but soon becomes preachy and melodramatic.
Dark family secrets are uncovered at a 60th birthday party.
Once upon a time in Nazi occupied France...
A faded television actor and his stunt double strive to achieve fame in the final years of Hollywood's Golden Age.