Christmas Inheritance Review – Spoiler Free
Christmas Inheritance is a new Netflix Original movie which is now available for all to watch on the streaming service. It was released quite close to Christmas and can easily be added to anyone’s 2017 Christmas movie list. I know there’s a lot of people out there who love this time of year as they get to watch all their favourite Christmas movies, but it’s nice to have some new ones to try as well.
Christmas Inheritance comes directed by Ernie Barbarash who some may know as the director of 2011’s Assassination Games as well as a variety of TV movies. The story comes from Dinah Eng, of which this is her second TV film, the first being 2015’s Reluctant Nanny. Christmas Inheritance stars Eliza Taylor, Jake Lacy, Andie MacDowell, Neil Crone and Michael Xavier.
I first became in watching Christmas Inheritance because I was looking for a Christmas movie to watch this week and I’ve always enjoyed Eliza Taylor in her appearances in The 100. This was enough for me to give the film a go, although I didn’t really have high expectations for it or anything.
Christmas Inheritance is a light Christmas comedy with strong Christmas themes. There’s even jingle bells ringing in multiple scenes and other Christmas music all throughout the film. It certainly does have a strong Christmas feel to it all.
The story is okay. It focuses on the story of Ellen Langford who is a rich heiress who is really a very material person and so too are the people around her. When we first meet Ellen she is attending a party and is behaving inappropriately, so much so that she ends up in the newspaper, with embarrassing pictures of her from the night. Ellen is an ambitious woman who wishes to inherit the company she is the heiress of, but her father thinks she needs to learn a hard lesson first. So he sends her to a small town, where she must discover the true ‘good’ values a person needs to have and also the meaning of Christmas. But will the town be able to change her?
I found the story to be just okay. It’s a fairly linear story, that does bring about some character development for the Ellen character, although much of the plot is fairly predictable. The light tone does help to keep things funny and the director seems to ensure that there is an overall ‘niceness’ to everything in Christmas Inheritance.
As a viewer, I found my time with this film to be quite relaxing, it’s not an intense film at all and as one of the Christmas films I’ve chosen to watch this year I don’t regret it. I enjoyed watching Eliza Taylor in this film and thought that the other actors were entertaining enough. I’m not sure if this film will make it into anyone’s classic Christmas list that they’ll rewatch every year, but as something new to see in 2017, it’s not bad at all.
