The Inheritance

Startling in its blunt portrait of a man who fears he will lose his humanity by assuming control of a family business--and who then goes on to lose precisely that--The Inheritance won six Danish Academy Awards, including one for writer-director Per Fly. The second in an ambitious trilogy about class struggles planned by Fly, The Inheritance stars Ulrich Thomsen as Christoffer, a successful restaurateur living happily with a beautiful actress, Maria (Lisa Werlinder). Having fled responsibility for helping run his family's steel business--a miserable time for Christoffer that cost him his health and self-respect--the happy hero finds himself squeezed by his manipulative mother (Ghita Norby) into becoming CEO following his father's suicide. In short order, Christoffer finds himself doing everything he considers despicable: firing loyal employees, jockeying for greater power, forcing out other family members. Fly's somber, low-key storytelling doesn't have to drive home the slow drama of Christoffer's moral and ethical deconstruction. It's a compelling if painful thing to behold, and Thomsen's performance as a man who gets away from himself is something to see. --Tom Keogh